


Not what it seems

by madgetval



Series: NWIT - Hermitcraft [1]
Category: Hermitcraft RPF, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Area 77 vs Hippies AU, Doc is the villain, Gen, Grian has wings, Hermitcraft season 6, Light Angst, Main Setting - Area 77, Main Setting - Falsewell, Main Setting - Hippie Commune, Mind Control, Minor Violence, Rendog and Renbob are the same person (shocker), Slightly Out Of Character, Some things are not canon and were added/removed/changed to fit the story, if anyone has any advice on tagging I'd be happy to take it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 34,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23778142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madgetval/pseuds/madgetval
Summary: If there was anyone watching Docm77 as he crashed onto the floor, they would have seen his eyes glowing bright red. But no-one was around.In which Area 77 is much more sinister than it seems.
Relationships: No Romantic Relationship(s)
Series: NWIT - Hermitcraft [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2021585
Comments: 56
Kudos: 110





	1. How it began

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So there's the first chapter! I don't know if anyone's going to read this, but if you do, please leave feedback! This is my first ever work that I've posted publicly, so constructive criticism would be great. Actually even if I'd ever posted anything before, constructive criticism would still be great.
> 
> This work is based in an AU where Doc was containing alien life because of being mind-controlled - very cliche, I know. A backstory may be produced (or a sequel where the backstory is explained) so that's why it says it's in a series. The series does not exist yet.
> 
> I've written out a few more chapters but I prefer to keep ahead of schedule. I'll try to write a new chapter every day but I'm restarting school soon so ... yeah.
> 
> If I come up with a better name for this work, I'll change it.
> 
> Also apparently the Rendog and Stressmonster character tags don't exist?

It was a normal day in Hermitville. The sun was high in the sky and the hermits were all content with the world.

One such hermit was Docm77.

Doc was strolling through the town that uneventful morning. He had a certain spring in his step as he took in all the events that had occurred in Hermitville.

He was slightly surprised at how creative the hermits who had participated in the build off had been. He noted appreciatively how well Scar had built his giant plant and how creative Iskall had been with his tower.

 _I really should visit the 1.14 area more often_ , he mused as he made his way to the nether portal tower. The creeper cyborg had been caught in everything that had been happening on the main island and had not visited the outer reaches of the world in a long time.

He opened the iron door and climbed the ladder, not wanting to waste rockets on flying upstairs.

When he got to the top, he saw a few random shulker boxes right in front of the portal. That was strange. Most hermits didn’t place shulker boxes in such public areas. Even Scar with his curse of chest monsters didn’t place them in front of the only nether portal in Hermitville.

He decided to investigate and opened a yellow one. Inside was an odd arrangement of items. The box contained ice blocks, diorite, buttons and golden carrots. If there was ice and diorite, Doc suspected that the boxes belonged to Grian and the winged prankster was using it to annoy Mumbo and Iskall.

Well, if it was Grian, then nothing inside the boxes would be particularly sinister. Surely he wouldn’t mind if Doc stole the golden carrots. It would be payback for blocking the nether portal. And Doc was really hungry but had no food.

Even if Grian did mind, it was too late for Doc had taken the golden carrots anyway.

He looked at the carrots in his hand. Something was telling him that he really shouldn’t eat them, but he was _so_ hungry. He took a bite. His head spun and his legs gave way.

If there was anyone watching Docm77 as he crashed onto the floor, they would have seen his eyes glowing bright red. But no-one was around.


	2. And so the rest of the story begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Doc is found and lost again. Also Grian is a pain.

“Congrats, dude!” Grian said heartily as they flew through the nether tunnels towards Hermitville. He felt Iskall look at him.

“What do you mean?” the Swede asked.

“On winning the build battle!”Grian smiled wickedly. His fellow Architech sighed but evidently decided to play along.

“Oh, _thanks_ , man!” he replied, feigning sincerity. “I really liked your house too! No wonder you _won the build battle as well!_ ”

“Aw, thanks man!” Grian sniggered as they landed in front of the main Hermitville portal. He folded his wings as he came to a halt. Without a second thought, they both stepped through … 

… right onto an unconscious Docm77 on the floor.

“Argh!” Grian cried as the tripped over, landing on the wooden floor too. Iskall had dodged more delicately and was now laughing at Grian on the floor.

“Why would you do that, Doc?” the builder snapped, but then realized what was wrong.

“He’s unconscious,” Iskall stated the obvious. It was Grian’s turn to roll his eyes.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “The better question is, why is he unconscious? No-one’s ever been unconscious in this world.”

“Dunno, man,” Iskall replied worriedly. Grian sighed.

“You check him for anything abnormal and I’ll message any available hermits,” he instructed. He took out his communicator and typed,

<Grian> anyone available?

<Grian> we found doc unconscious

<Grian> we need help

<stressmonster101> omg, is he okay?

<Mumbo Jumbo> Sorry G, I’m busy. Hope he gets better

<FalseSymmetry> yeah, so do we, mumbo

<FalseSymmetry> sorry man, ren’s being a pain again. can’t make it

<Renthedog> WHAT DO YOU MEAN

<FalseSymmetry> …

<FalseSymmetry> see?

<GoodTimeWithScar> i could make it later, but right now i’m busy

<GoodTimeWithScar> sorry

<Xisuma> That’s strange … I’ve never heard of anyone unconscious, ever

<Xisuma> BRT

<impulseSV> i’m busy, sorry!

<impulseSV> tell us when he gets better

<FalseSymmetry> wow, you’re being so helpful, impulse!

<impulseSV> what’s your problem, false?

Xisuma experienced kinetic energy

<FalseSymmetry> LOL

<Xisuma> Guess I can’t make it! And thanks for the overflowing sympathy, False!

<FalseSymmetry> pleasure

<stressmonster101> i’m now free, brt

Grian closed his communicator. Normally, the hermits talking amongst themselves would be entertaining, but he was too worried about Doc. He turned to Iskall.

“Nothing,” Iskall said before Grian could ask. “It just looks like he’s fallen asleep but he isn’t waking up. He’s breathing, though.”

“Wowee!” came a new voice. “What happened here?”

Both Architechs turned to Stress who was now exiting the portal. She rushed up to Doc.

“He’s unconscious and nothing out of the blue is wrong with him,” Iskall supplied helpfully.

“We need to get ‘im to sum’where where I can treat ‘im,” Stress ordered. “My house on Sahara Street is close by. Iskall, help me carry him.”

“But he’s so _big_ ,” Iskall protested. “He’s literally the biggest hermit, tied with Mumbo.”

“Which is why I need your help to carry ‘im,” Stress replied.

“Why can’t Grian do it?” Iskall protested.

“‘Cause you two are the same height and I know that Grian has some helpful potions in tha’ house of ‘is,’ Stress shot back. “Can you get ‘em for me, hun?”

“Sure!” Grian shot a smile at Iskall before escaping to his house. Iskall seriously doubted that Grian would be able to find the potions in the mess of barrels, chests and shulker boxes but didn’t open his mouth as Stress was glaring at him.

He obediently bent down to pick up Doc’s top half, with Stress carrying his legs. The cyborg was tied with Mumbo as the tallest hermit and was certainly wider than Mumbo’s skinny frame. They barely made it to the ladder before they both collapsed.

“Well, that didn’t work,” Iskall remarked. Stress either didn’t hear him or was ignoring him while typing on her communicator. Iskall took out his own.

<stressmonster101> anyone free? we can’t lift him

<stressmonster101> how embarrassing

<Tango Tek> right, both you and iskall are as small as heck

<FalseSymmetry> nope, lol

<impulseSV> false, do you ever do anything apart from taunt people with your communicator?

<FalseSymmetry> i taunt ren in person … does that count?

<Renthedog> ;-;

<Tango Tek> with the lack of any other capable person available, i guess i’ll do it

<FalseSymmetry> hey i’m capable

<impulseSV> NOBODY CARES

<iskall85> thanks, tango

<impulseSV> because tango should be flying in the tunnels now, i’ll say it myself - no problem

Iskall waited, watching the portal. Soon his legs got tired so he sat down next to Stress. Soon enough, the friendly neighborhood demon came through the portal.

“How’s it going, guys?” Tango greeted, then saw Doc. “Wow.”

“Yeah, we can’t carry ‘im,” Stress explained.

“No problem!” Tango said confidently. “I can do it.”

Iskall did not doubt him. Tango was one of the tallest hermits on the server, just not as tall as Doc or Mumbo. Still, he was strong and a good flier so Iskall was not surprised when he launched himself off the tower and managed to take flight.

Iskall and Stress activated their own elytra and followed him. They arrived at Stress’s house, outside of which Grian was waiting impatiently, arms full of potion bottles.

“Where have you been? I’ve been waiting forever,” the builder complained.

“Hey, G!” Tango said brightly. “Just dropping off a corpse!”

“-what?”

“‘e’s kiddin’,” Stress said sternly. Tango did not seem repentant but shut his mouth. “Jus’ drop ‘im off on the bed, tha’ would be great!”

“Sure!” Grian moved out of the way as Iskall opened the door for Tango. “Nice place you got here. Glad to see someone can live with all the chaos in the sky.”

Both Grian and Iskall made angry noises and Tango grinned at them. Stress sighed.

Tango quickly deposited Doc onto the bed in the small room. “I’ll see myself out now.”

Without a word, he stepped outside and closed the door. The whoosh of firework rockets showed that he had taken off.

Stress wasted no time. “Grian, pas’ me regen, health and strength potions. Iskall, get the spare blankets and the pillow from the ches’ closes’ to the door.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Iskall heard Grian mutter under his breath and snorted.

He still complied, grabbing the neatly-folded blankets and the pillow and arranging them on the bed so that Doc was covered by the blankets comfortably and his head was resting on the pillow. Meanwhile, Stress had thrown a splash potion of regeneration at Doc and was now applying water to his creeper face. Iskall was sure Stress knew that Doc’s robot parts were waterproof but he supposed they didn’t have nerves to feel anything either.

“Tha’ should be it,” Stress said, stepping back.

“What? You splashed some potions on him and put some water on his face,” Iskall complained. Stress gave him an icy glare and being the Ice Queen, her icy glare was extremely effective.

“I didn’ have ‘nough resources to make ‘im wake immediately,” she snapped. “You’re welcome to try yourself.”

Iskall blinked. “Sure.”

“Anyway, bye guys! See you sometime soon!” Grian almost shouted as he exited the room. Both Iskall and Stress concluded that he was going to either annoy Mumbo or work on some crazy plan of his.

Actually, annoying Mumbo sounded really appealing to Iskall right then. Especially with the glaring Stressmonster right next to him.

“Yeah, I’ve got to go … too …” Iskall said awkwardly. Stress sighed, sat down on a barrel and rolled her eyes.

“Bye, then.”

She watched as Iskall closed the door behind him. She sighed. It wasn’t that Iskall was annoying, exactly, but he just got on her nerves a lot.

Anyway, her job wasn’t to babysit Iskall and Grian, it was to look after Doc until he woke again. She stood up and went over to her storage area where she retrieved a book and quill and began doodling absentmindedly.

She almost didn’t hear the knock on her door. She certainly wouldn’t have heard the knock on the door if it wasn’t for whoever outside crashing into the wall at full speed. Did it even count as a knock then?

She checked her communicator.

GoodTimeWithScar experienced kinetic energy

<FalseSymmetry> HA lol

<GoodTimeWithScar> noooo

<GoodTimeWithScar> i’m so sorry, stress

<impulseSV> false, i’m not going to say it again

<impulseSV> SHUT UP

<GoodTimeWithScar> right, i’m heading back

<GoodTimeWithScar> could you get my stuff, please?

<FalseSymmetry> snap i was there but then forgot to visit

<impulseSV> oh BOOHOO

<FalseSymmetry> sorry, stress

<FalseSymmetry> i’m just finishing off falsewell

<impulseSV> nobody cares

Stress did not continue reading the great battle of Impulse and False because she had to collect Scar’s possessions. She grabbed a spare shulker box and headed outside.

Scar’s items were _everywhere_ . He seemed to have exploded outside. She ran around, picking up all his tools, armor and food. And a bunch of redstone supplies. _He seems to have been doing something at Cherry_ , Stress inferred.

It seemed ages before Scar finally arrived at her doorstep. He had made his way from the nether portal tower walking and breathing heavily. He seemed a little worse for wear but was still alive.

“Hi, Stress,” he panted, bending over to catch his breath.

“Why’re you so tired from flyin’ in the nether tunnels?” Stress asked, amused.

“Creepers,” Scar gasped. “Also zombies and I ran out of rockets - and I had to run.”

Stress decided it could be a good idea to change the subject. “Poor you. Doc’s inside. I assume you wanna see ‘im?”

“Yeah, that would be great, thanks,” Scar said, coughing. Stress looked back on his folded form and giggled.

They made their way into the small room, where Doc was still unconscious. Stress handed Scar the shulker box of his stuff while she set up a cake.

Scar was just looking at Doc. “Wow. He’s unconscious. I’ve never seen anyone unconscious before.”

“I know, righ’? Villagers an’ other mobs go unconscious all the time, but not us!” Stress replied.

“Do you have any idea how it happened?” Scar asked politely. Stress shook her head.

“I would’ve guessed ‘e took some potions he wasn’t supposed to,” she offered. “But there weren’t any bottles near ‘im.”

“That’s strange,” Scar mused.

“It is,” Stress agreed.

They sat awkwardly for a few minutes before Scar noticed that Stress was anxiously checking her communicator.

“Anything wrong, Stress?”Scar asked.

“Oh, err …” Stress began. “I’ve agreed to meet up wi’ Iskall soon to sign a Sahara ice deal.”

“Go do that, I’ll watch over Doc,” Scar offered. Stress seemed to hesitate, but then nodded.

“Tell me if ‘e wakes up. I’ll be back in like … an ‘our?”

Scar nodded. “Sure thing.”

So Stress left, and Scar sat gloomily by himself. It wasn’t exactly a lie that there were creepers and zombies in the nether tunnels, but he was mostly panicked about his lack of a hat. His cowboy hat had been a part of him for ages and now he felt naked without it.

Part of him snorted at himself for making such a big deal about a hat. But the hat was precious to him and it was all the way back at his base.

Maybe he should stop caring so much about doing things the quickest way and instead remember important things. Stress wouldn’t have minded if he’d shown up just a few minutes later.

Stuck deep in his thoughts, he was only jerked back to reality by a deep groan. He instantly snapped to attention, watching the creeper cyborg intently.

As his eyes fluttered open, Scar thought that he saw his eyes glow bright red - even more red than Doc’s cyborg eye. He pushed this thought aside. _It’s just a trick of the light._

“Wow … where am I?” Doc groaned. Scar went over to him.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine … Scar,” Doc said, stumbling on Scar’s name. What was worrying was that Scar didn’t know if Doc had gotten amnesia and was reading Scar’s name tag, if Doc was faking amnesia to mess with him, or Doc was too disorientated that he couldn’t talk properly. “What happened?”

“Grian and Iskall found you unconscious in the Hermitville nether portal tower and they asked Stress to treat you and Stress apparently got Tango to carry you to her house - which is here - and Grian and Iskall left and I came and Stress left,” Scar said quickly. “Also we’re in Hermitville.”

“I see.” Doc’s words came out slowly. Now Scar really was concerned.

“You okay, my dude?” he asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Doc replied. “I just need to get orientated with my surroundings. Can we take a walk?”

“We really shouldn’t,” Scar protested. “You’re unwell.”

“No, I really am fine. I can tell you myself that I’m fine,” Doc shot back.

Stress hadn’t told Scar about not letting Doc out of the house. Plus, if Doc said he was well, then it would bea good idea, right? Doc was a sensible person and wouldn’t say he was well if he wasn’t. Plus, Scar really didn’t want to get on the trident king’s bad side.

“Okaaaay,” Scar agreed slowly.

In a flash, Doc had gotten out of bed and was walking out of the door. Scar got out his communicator.

<GoodTimeWithScar> he’s awake but behaving strangely

<GoodTimeWithScar> i’m worried. He doesn’t seem to know my name and we’re taking a walk

Without waiting for an answer, he followed Doc closely. His friend’s behaviour _was_ really strange - more strange than normal Doc’s behaviour, certainly.

“Wow. The sun is really bright,” Doc commented as they stepped outside.

“Yeah, it is,” Scar agreed. They strolled around the town, with Doc commenting on the mess that the build battle put in the sky and all of the medieval buildings around town. Scar found it extremely strange - wouldn’t Doc have already seen all this? Still, he pushed the thought away.

They ended up at Grian’s house at the end of Sahara Street. Doc visibly recoiled when he saw the dragon at the top. “What is that?”

“That’s the Hermitville Dragon. Grian made it,” Scar supplied, supposing it wasn’t easy to see that it was a dragon from the ground.

“So this house belongs to … Grian?” Doc asked.

Scar nodded, but inside he was shaking. _How does he not know who GRIAN is? Grian’s like one of the most social guys ever, especially to Doc. Plus, Doc’s been Grian’s main enemy for many competitions so HOW DOES HE NOT KNOW. I think I might just faint._

He forced a smile onto his face. He noticed the small man in question in the wheat farm next to his house. “Look, that’s him there!”

Doc peered around the building, evidently saw Grian, and went over to him, trampling all of the crops as he did so.

Scar saw Grian tense while his back was turned and when Doc growled, he jumped around a mile into the sky.

“Oh, hey Doc, hey Scar!” The builder waved awkwardly. “Good to see you up and about.”

“Hello, Grian,” Doc said stiffly. “What is this white building in your vegetable garden?”

“Oh this?” Grian asked, and Scar finally saw the small white building made out of quartz and iron that Grian was standing in front of. “Oh, it’s nothing.”

Scar narrowed his eyes. He was really concerned. This was obviously not nothing. Judging by the way Doc had stepped forward menacingly, he thought so too.

“Tell us the truth,” the creeper hissed. Grian’s eyes widened.

“It’s really, really nothing,” Grian smiled widely and tried to turn Doc away. He wasn’t even trying to be unsuspicious now.

“Tell us!” Doc barked.

Grian blinked. He looked at Doc. Doc looked back at him. This behaviour wasn’t normal for Doc. Although gruff and sarcastic, the cyborg was never this rude and he had never bossed any of the other hermits around.

Scar was really confused. Why was Doc behaving so strangely? He knew Doc to be gruff and people feared him, but he had never seen Doc be so rude or try and boss people around.

“I think that’s all for today,” he said loudly, grabbing Doc by the non-metallic arm. He had to get them away from each other before they started fighting. He made a confused face towards Grian that Doc couldn’t see, and Grian shrugged subtly back.

He forcibly dragged Doc away from the vegetable patch, praying all the way that Doc wouldn’t snap and start killing everyone. His respawn point was at his volcanic island base and that was so far away.

“Let’s take a look at Hermitland next,” he suggested. “I heard that there’s a new game called Dig Straight Down there. We should have a look at it.”

“Sure …”

Scar led the way to the bridge with the giant ‘Hermitland’ sign over it. He refrained from telling Doc that Grian built it, or that Grian built DSD as well. Doc probably wasn’t familiar with Hermitville and the surroundings so he probably didn’t know how influential Grian was in these areas.

“Over here, you can see this giant minigame that Cub is building. I think it’s called Ravager Run,” Scar pointed out. “Here is Sahara Eats, where you can buy golden carrots.”

“I see,” Doc mused.

They continued walking. Scar pointed out notable features, which wasn’t a lot considering the area was fairly new. Scar led the way left until they got to DSD.

“This is Dig Straight Down, a minigame where you pay five diamonds to pick a polished andesite block. You dig straight down and you’ll find loot, but there’s lava at some point so you have to bail using the dirt blocks provided,” he explained.

Doc stayed silent. Scar hoped he was in deep thought and the deep thought wasn’t about killing Grian.

“Scar?” he asked.

“ … Yeah?” Scar said nervously.

“I think the white building that Grian character was hiding was a time machine,” Doc answered firmly. “And we need to stop it from harming any other hermits.”

_Oh, so this was all part of a roleplay thing that Doc made up on the spot. I get it now. And I just realized that Doc probably didn’t recognize Grian’s house because he hasn’t been here for a while. Right. That’s definitely it._

Scar nodded, getting into character. A government official would be suitable. Right. He took a deep breath. “I agree. Let’s protect Hermitcraft from the time machine.”

~~~

“Over here is a good spot,” Scar reported, flying above a large Plains biome, within sight of Hermitland.

“Yes, it is,” Doc agreed. Scar watched him land on the ground. “Let’s get to work. Mark out the perimeter with black and yellow wool. The upside of setting up in unclaimed land is that you can have all the land you want.”

Scar grabbed a shulker box Doc had laid down. “Okay, but first: what are we going to name this place?”

Doc smiled. “No problem. This is now called Area 77.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Also to the person who commented on the last chapter, thank you for your advice! This chapter I think is a lot longer. Also I would have replied but I don't know how to yet. But also thank you for commenting and being nice!


	3. And so they stole the time machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a time machine is stolen.

Scar spent the next few days building a hangar on the side of a hill. He began wearing a blue uniform with a hat that made his eyes look decidedly angry all of the time, which is why he adopted the name of Captain Angry Eyes.

He noticed that Doc was completely and totally invested in this project - he hardly went to sleep at night. Everything was just Area 77, Area 77, Area 77. Still, Doc seemed a lot happier (and even more mentally unstable) so he let it be.

He sat in the middle of the chest monster that had formed outside of the hangar. The hangar in question was finished, but he still wanted to expand it.

“Hey, Scar!” Doc’s voice called out. Scar sat up straight and looked around. Doc was at the top of the hill where the hangar was.

“How’s it going?” Scar greeted his friend.

“Don’t you think it’s time to do something about the time machine?” the cyborg asked eagerly.

Scar froze. He’d tried to avoid the subject of the time machine in hopes that Doc would just forget it. Apparently it didn’t work. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that we should steal Grian’s time machine - you know, protecting Hermitcraft and all that,” Doc answered.

“I see,” Scar said carefully. He didn’t see the point of trying to dissuade Doc as the new Doc was just as stubborn as the old one.

“I think it’s still in the wheat farm,” Doc said brightly. “Let’s go.”

Scar was concerned. Doc was now in a good mood, but his apparent protectiveness of the server had morphed into an obsession with Area 77. But he didn’t know what to do, so he kept his mouth shut.

~~~

“We’re here,” Doc announced. They landed heavily in the empty streets of Hermitville.

They had picked the perfect time to sneak in - everybody else was on the main island for some event or other. Neither of them was really interested so they used the time to steal the time machine.

“It’s here,” Scar stated, pointing at the small white structure in the wheat farm. The two went over, with Scar climbing onto the top of the time machine and Doc going inside.

“Start deconstructing,” Doc instructed. Scar began work on disassembly, taking out his pickaxe and breaking all of the quartz and iron blocks. The sound of thick glass breaking signaled that Doc had broken a beacon inside.

“Also, there’s a villager in here. With a Grian head,” Doc reported.

“We can row it to where we want it to be,” Scar suggested. Doc said nothing so Scar took it to mean that he agreed.

After the time machine was no more than a patch of dirt and magma on the ground, they took to the sky and vanished.

~~~

“Where should we put it?” Doc asked as they regrouped a bit outside the town. He’d put the villager in a boat and had rowed the boat all the way out here.

Scar thought hard. There was nowhere in Area 77 - or Hermitville as a whole - that would ensure the time machine’s absolute safety. That meant the main island.

He imagined a map in his mind. Doc and Scar’s bases were too obvious to be a safe spot, and the shopping district was too often used. He didn’t have much experience with hiding things. He had to think like a grand thief. So where would a master thief hide a time machine?

Right under Grian’s nose. The thought came to him immediately.

Then he remembered. Right next to Grian’s conduit design that he built soon after they dropped into this world, Scar had built Spongebob’s house as a prank. The basement was the perfect size to house the time machine and it was so rarely used that no-one would think to look there. He doubted that Grian had been in there more than once.

He told Doc his idea and the creeper cyborg immediately agreed. “Can you do it now?”

“But they’re all on the main island,” Scar began. Doc shook his head.

“Come on, Scar,” he wheedled. “Grian probably won’t see you.”

_ Probably? _ Scar thought drily, but didn’t voice out loud. “Fine, but it’s your fault if we get discovered.”

Doc chucked the shulker box that contained the parts of the time machine at him. “Hurry up. I’ll take this villager to Area 77. Find some place where we can chuck it.”

Scar doubled back in the sky to fly back to Hermitville. “See you!”

He didn’t hear what Doc said next as he shot towards the town. He liked to think that he became a blur against the sky, especially considering his blue uniform and how it blended against the sky. The wind whistled in his ears and he relished the feeling of being free.

He landed right in front of the nether portal, narrowly missing a bunch of shulker boxes right in front of it. He remembered them from the day Doc was unconscious but didn’t have time to check what was inside. Curious, he opened them. Ice, diorite and buttons. A strange collection of items, but he assumed that it belonged to Grian and the builder was using the blocks inside to annoy Mumbo and Iskall.

Not thinking too much of it, he went through the portal. He flew down the blue tunnel, carefully avoiding crashing into either the ice trail or the trapdoors on the walls - they had claimed his life too many times.

He spiraled down until he landed in front of the nether portal for the DERP mall. He was pretty sure the event was being hosted near Sahara, so this was far away enough to not disturb anyone who was there. He could sneak down the airstrip and make his way to Spongebob’s house that way.

He went through the portal. He quietly exited the building, his shoes making only a small sound. Sure enough, there were voices he could hear in Sahara, most notably Rendog’s.

Quietly, he walked down the airstrip. He was still in close proximity to Sahara so elytra flying could be heard. He could leap off the end of the airstrip and take flight there.

And he did just that, jumping off the end of the airstrip which ended in a cliff and launching into flight. He sped over the water until he got to where he could access the row of buildings easily. He dove into the water, the conduit allowing him to breathe underwater.

He swam down until he came to the pineapple-shaped building right next to the prismarine conduit design. He pushed the button to open the iron door. Flicking the lever inside, he climbed down a ladder to end up in the basement.

He set the shulker box down and began reassembling the time machine. He’d memorized the entire structure so it was just a matter of placing the blocks down.

A few minutes later, the deed was done. The time machine was now secure.

~~~

<Grian> anyone in hermitville

<Mumbo Jumbo> Not that I know of

<GoodTimeWithScar> i’m in area 77

<Grian> anyone in hermitville that’s not in area 77

Grian paused, waiting for an answer. He wanted to renovate the interior of his wooden tower to make it a bit more usable but it seemed lonely now in Hermitville - everyone was too scared of the two guys in Area 77 to come anymore.

He gracefully landed behind his house, next to the wheat farm with his time machine. Except the time machine seemed to be missing. He walked around the house to the front door.

Wait, what?

The time machine was missing. How had it not dawned on him before? He was being even more of a spoon than Mumbo. The problem was, THE TIME MACHINE WAS MISSING.

He forced himself to take deep breaths. There had to be a logical explanation to it. He went over to the farm and took a look.

The time machine certainly wasn’t there. In its place was now a jumble of magma blocks and dirt.

Who could have taken it? It could’ve been a prank on him, or someone went inside without knowing what it was.

Grian wanted to believe that it was just a prank. He checked the list of hermits on his communicator. Everybody seemed to be there, which was great - nobody had messed with time. Which meant that someone was pulling a prank on him.

He figured the best way to figure out who stole it was to send a message in chat. Someone might spill something accidentally - or on purpose.

<Grian> does anyone know where a certain quartz and concrete structure with a beacon in the middle has gone?

<stressmonster101> it’s gone? i saw it when i was passing by

<Renthedog> yeah, same! i thought it was really weird

<FalseSymmetry> nope

<Renthedog> impulse’s gonna snap

<impulseSV> false, listen here you little sh*t

<Renthedog> WOAH WOAH WOAH

<Renthedog> calm down, dude

<GoodTimeWithScar> a quartz structure, you said?

Grian’s heart stopped. It was definitely Scar.

<Grian> yesss?

<GoodTimeWithScar> my lips are closed

<GoodTimeWithScar> but i’ll say that it’s in capable hands

Grian snorted to himself. Scar was anything but capable, but if Scar had it, then it wasn’t a problem. Scar wasn’t the type to mess with things he didn’t understand, and he wouldn’t do things that harmed anyone else. Plus, Scar wouldn’t just hand anything over to Doc … he hoped.

Still, he trusted Scar. Even if the cowboy now went by Captain Angry Eyes, and he was affiliated with Area 77, he still valued his friends above some weird collection … right?

Grian tried to save himself from the impending thought loop by heading to Falsewell, the closest sign of life to him. He still didn’t get how False managed to live with those two goons near her.

Landing in the middle of the road, he heard sounds coming from the diner. Player-like sounds, in fact. He opened the acacia door and stepped into the Falsewell diner, where one FalseSymmetry was making lunch.

“Hey, Grian!” False called from the kitchen. “Nice to see you around these parts!”

“You too, Mayor False,” Grian replied politely.

“I’m just cooking burgers. Do you want some?” she asked.

Grian thought about it. “Yes please, if it isn’t inconvenient.”

He sat down on the red nether brick chairs, folding his wings in carefully as False cooked with the smoker in the kitchen.

“How’s your legendary battle with Impulse going?” he asked drily.

“He isn’t even close to beating my superior wit,” False said proudly. Grian rolled his eyes and smiled. “Don’t roll your eyes at me! Impulse can’t even dream of beating me!”

Grian was surprised that False could sense his eye-roll. Must be a benefit of being a PvP goddess.

“I heard that your time machine went for a little walk,” she said casually. Grian would’ve spat out his drink but he didn’t have one.

“Oh, really,” he said casually back.

“Well I heard that the Area 77 guys have it now,” False said casually back.

Grian, who had been taking a drink from a water bottle, really did spit out his drink. He wiped his mouth. “Sorry, what?”

“When I was doing my thing, cooking here in the kitchen, I heard Doc and Scar walking into the diner. They were talking about how they had stolen - as Doc put it - that scum Grian’s time machine.”

Grian blinked rapidly. He didn’t know what to feel. So it was the Area 77 guys who had stolen it - not just Scar. And Doc had called him scum. He couldn’t believe his ears.

In a composed voice, he asked, “Is there anything else that they said, Mayor?”

False chuckled. “Want the inside scoop, do ya? Good for you, ‘cos you’ve come to the right place!”

She paused and waited. Grian wanted to scream at her to move on, but he didn’t because Doc would do that and False could definitely beat him in a PvP battle. Instead, he put on a mask of indifference, when all he wanted to do was rush over there and take back his time machine.

False watched him intently. Other people would have cracked and asked her to hurry up, but not Grian. He just sat there. After finally realizing that she wasn’t going to prod a reaction from him, she continued.

“Loads of people have come into Falsewell, discussing Area 77. Of course, this was before everybody left Hermitville,” False said dramatically.

“Are you even cooking that steak anymore?” Grian asked. It sure looked like the steak that False had been cooking was now stuck to the pan and slightly burnt. It looked like False was just in the kitchen, standing still and talking to him.

“Nope, but you don’t know that,” False replied. “Anyway, what can you offer me for this information?”

“I, uhh …” Grian thought about it. He wasn’t particularly rich with diamonds or any other resource. He could only offer an IOU or a prank voucher. “Prank voucher?”

“You gave me one for winning the Grian Head Hunt, and look how that turned out,” False said immediately. That was true. The Head Hunt had been one of the causes of the Civil War.

“An IOU?” He tried again. That was his last-ditch effort. He didn’t really want to owe anyone anything, and Joe had used it against him during the prank war too. But apparently it was good enough for False.

“Deal,” she replied. She continued, still standing completely still. “Doc and Scar - who now goes by Captain Angry Eyes - visit Falsewell frequently. Most of the time it’s just Doc telling me to mind my own business, but where’s the fun in that? So I’m telling you this so that you can go annoy them.”

“Sure.”

False gave him a funny look, but didn’t say anything about it. “They said that they’ve stolen your time machine. Not to me, of course, but they were discussing it with each other. They also took your villager, which is in Area 77, they said.”

Villager Grian! Grian remembered the villager that he had put a Grian mask on and named. He’d been in the time machine, hadn’t he? Also, how did the Area 77 guys even know that it was a time machine? He’d never talked to anyone about it.

“Because they worded it like that, it meant the time machine itself wasn’t in Area 77. They probably put it somewhere where they thought was really secure. Good news is, Scar - I mean, Captain Angry Eyes - was the one who claims to have hid it, and luckily for you, Scar’s not very good at hiding things,” False continued. “I would say it’s hidden somewhere right under your nose, but it’s just a theory. When you go trying to find it, I would suggest bringing someone with you - I heard Rendog - Renbob - wanted to investigate further, being a hippie and all that.”

_ He probably wants to investigate to get away from you _ , Grian thought to himself, not really meaning it. False liked to annoy Ren, but they were still friends beneath all the pranks. “Okay, wow. Thanks so much, False. Wait ... how do you know all this?”

“I can't tell you that,” she replied, finally turning around. As Grian got to the door to leave (with no burger in his stomach), she called out, “don’t forget you owe me!”

“I won’t,” Grian reassured her. “I just need to get my time machine back first.”

“That’s not the most important thing,” False interrupted. Grian was confused. She shook her head. “Look, Doc’s been acting really strange. Sure, he’s known to be obsessed with loads of projects and not stop working until they’re done, but I’ve never heard him insult anyone like calling you “scum” before. Scar probably hasn’t noticed or has tried to hide it under the rug, but you’ve gotta talk some sense into him.”

Grian swallowed. He really didn’t want to be on the business end of one of Doc’s terrifying lightning tridents, but it was for the cyborg’s own good, wasn’t it? “I’ll try.”

It completely took them by surprise when the two hermits they had been talking about stepped into the diner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Chapter 3! Thanks for reading! Also if you left kudos, thanks for leaving kudos!
> 
> Don't worry about False, she can easily kick Doc's butt if he ever tries to harm her.


	4. And so Grian and Doc have a staring contest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which bad guys are told off and nuclear reactor cores are stolen.

“Hey, Falsey!” Scar called as they entered the diner.

False looked up. Doc had come in first, shouldering Grian aside. Scar had come in after him, politely apologizing to Grian.

“Hi, Scar! Hi, Doc!” she replied. She saw Grian’s wings tense. She carefully avoided telling them that she had spilled all their secrets to him. “How’re you guys doing?”

“Fine,” Doc said gruffly, sitting down on a red nether brick stair. Coincidentally, this was the same stair that Grian had sat on just a few moments ago.

“Anything I can get you guys?” she asked, just to lighten the mood. Everybody knew that she didn’t actually serve anything in her diner, much less charge it for diamonds.

“No, thank you,” Scar answered. He was still standing and looked extremely uncomfortable. False supposed that it was mostly due to him standing in between Grian and Doc, who were having a glaring competition.

“Thanks for the hospitality, False. I think I’ll be off,” Grian excused himself. “I’ll be leaving a bad customer review because of the  _ scum _ you allow in your diner.”

Before anyone had the chance to reply, the builder had taken flight, leaving the three remaining hermits in awkward silence.

“So False, how’s life?” Scar asked. False appreciated his attempt to make small talk so she replied.

“Pretty good. Very eventful,” she remarked vaguely. She sat down on the chair opposite Doc.

“So tell me, False,” the creeper man hissed. False kept her cool even though she was scared of Doc and his trident. “What exactly did you tell Grian?”

She kept a straight face, but her head was spinning.  _ How do they know that I told Grian anything they know don’t they they’re going to kill me and Doc’s going to turn insane oh no oh no oh no OH NO. _

She didn’t say any of that out loud. Instead, she tilted her head to the side. “Tell Grian? What do you mean?”

“Don’t act innocent,” he growled, slamming his fist on the table. “You know exactly what you did. Now tell us what you told him!”

“Err, Doc? I think you should calm down,” came Scar’s timid voice. Doc ignored him.

“Scar, why don’t you take a seat?” False asked him. Scar’s eyes widened but he complied, sitting next to Doc even though he looked like he was going to cry.

“Stop wasting time, you self-appointed mayor!” Doc hissed. False looked him dead in the eye.

“I may be the self-appointed mayor, but you are the self-appointed government, who I never swore loyalty to. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Doc, but you’re not treating the hermits with respect like they deserve. Scar is terrified of you and I can imagine why,” she spat. “Please remove yourself from my diner before I take matters into my own hands.”

She decided that it would be worth a shot to try and PvP Doc away. She knew how Doc faught, and the space wasn’t big enough for a trident to be thrown.

“That won’t be necessary,” the creeper cyborg replied. He stood up, and because he was sitting on the side closest to the wall, Scar, who was sitting on the aisle seat, stood up too and made way. Doc strode over to the door and turned, much like Grian did. “Like Grian, I’ll be posting a poor review, too.”

He opened the door and left, letting it swing shut behind him.

False grabbed onto Scar’s arm as he turned to follow. “Please, Scar, try and talk to him.”

Scar looked back at her. She could sense the hesitation in his eyes. She shook her head.

“At least try to make Grian talk to him. Or Ren. Ren’s his friend,” she asked again. “You’ve got to do it, Scar.”

“I’ll try, False,” he whispered.

“Tell him that Grian knows that you’ve got his time machine, because he does. But not necessarily from me,” she warned. If Scar was terrified of Doc, he would also know that False was a formidable opponent on the battlefield.

“I’ll try,” he said again.

False let go of his arm and watched as he followed after Doc. She hoped that he would try, but knowing Scar, he would try to ignore it until it really was important.

~~~

Scar found Doc inside the first hangar in Area 77. He was sitting on one of the trapdoor platforms on the right corridor.

“Hey, Doc,” he called as he walked up to the very tall creeper cyborg. Doc looked up but didn’t say anything. It seemed that for now, he was calm.

Scar apparently had been pushing his luck because just after he had come to that conclusion, Doc had stood up. “That filthy hippie Renbob has stolen my nuclear reactor core,” he spat.

Renbob - wasn’t that an alter ego of Rendog? The hippie alter ego? The one who lived in an RV in Hermitville? He’d stolen the reactor core.

Scar vaguely remembered a small contraption that Doc had built and hung somewhere in Area 77. He didn’t remember exactly what it did, but he remembered that Doc took very good care with it.

_ Ren probably doesn’t know what he’s getting into _ , Scar thought worriedly. Doc hadn’t been anywhere except for Area 77 and Falsewell, which meant Ren hadn’t seen the state he was in. The hippie probably avoided Hermitville because everyone else was, and either didn’t know that Doc was going to snap in a moment’s notice, or it was a very cruel prank. Scar suspected it was the former.

“Right. We need to get it back,” he said. “But I found out that False told Grian that we were the ones who stole the time machine.”

He hoped that Doc wouldn’t ask how exactly he found out, because he was a terrible liar. His wishes were granted as Doc simply sat down again and grunted.

“We need to do something about that Renbob,” he hissed. “He thinks that he can steal from  _ us _ . Well. Just me.”

_ See, Scar? That’s what normal Doc would say. This is normal Doc. Doc is completely fine. Everything is completely fine. You’re just worried for no reason. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is very, very short. But do not worry, for the next two chapters are full of things happening.  
> Thanks for reading!


	5. And so the hippies became a thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which hippies team up and peace flags are waved.

Grian was typing on his communicator.

<Grian> ren, got a moment?

<Renthedog> hmm … not really

<Grian> i promise it will be worth your time

<FalseSymmetry> what is it

<Renthedog> impulse, you there

<impulseSV> …

<Renthedog> everyone, take cover

<Renthedog> he’s gonna blow

<impulseSV> no, i’m not

<impulseSV> i have finally realized that i will not be able to change false

<impulseSV> she’s very unshakeable

<FalseSymmetry> why, thank you

<impulseSV> by which i mean that she’s as stubborn as heck and always thinks that she’s right

<Renthedog> OKAY GRIAN

<Renthedog> LET’S MEET UP

<Renthedog> WHERE IS OKAY

<FalseSymmetry> ren, you’re meant to be my friend!

<FalseSymmetry> you can’t just let impulse insult me like that!

<Grian> at my house in hermitville?

<Renthedog> sure, cya

Grian turned his communicator off. False and Impulse had been arguing for a long time, and now just used any opportunity to insult each other. He was  _ pretty _ sure that they were just playing around.

He returned to pacing in front of his door until Rendog - sorry,  _ Renbob _ \- arrived.

He didn’t have to wait long. After a few minutes of messing up the path, the hippie in question arrived, all decked out in sunglasses and flowers in his hair.

“Good to see you, Renbob,” Grian greeted. The hippie smiled serenely back.

“Good to see you too, Grian,” he replied. “Why did you call me here?”

Without saying anything, Grian abruptly turned and walked around the house, avoiding the sweet berry bushes in the sweet berry bush farm. Ren followed him and saw what he saw.

“Why is there a bunch of magma blocks and a hole in the ground?” he asked peacefully.

“There used to be a time machine here, but those two scoundrels in Area 77 stole it!” Grian stated angrily.

“Oh, I see,” Ren replied sleepily. “So you want me to help you get it back.”

“You don’t have to do that, but I want to form an alliance with you so that we can get it back,” Grian explained. “I really want my time machine back and they might accidentally use it with no way of getting back to this timeline.”

Ren thought about this. “Sure.”

“I’ve got an idea - because you’re a hippie, I’ll be a hippie too! Wait a sec, I’m going to change,” Grian said, rushing into his house and closing the door behind him.

Moments later, he rushed out again, wearing the proper attire for a hippie - crystal necklaces, flowers in his hair, bracelets and sandals. Grian was very proud of his hippie costume and it seemed like Ren was too.

“That is a very good hippie outfit,” he remarked composedly.

“I know, right?” Grian did a twirl. “I’ve got another idea - we can set up a base where we can prepare to storm Area 77 and we can fill it with hippie-related stuff.”

“That is a great idea,” Renbob said serenely.

“I’ve got an area in mind - come on, I’ll show you!” Grian launched into the sky, great purple wings flapping. Ren had to put on his elytra again first, but followed.

~~~

“Right, so I’m thinking around here could be okay,” Grian said, motioning to the plains biome all around them. He pointed. “Area 77 is just over there, and from here we have a perfect view.”

“This is a great idea,” Ren said calmly. “One thing, though - we have a perfect view of them just like they have a perfect view of us.”

“Exactly! We are open-minded, peace-loving hippies who do not steal,” Grian announced. He noticed that Ren had tensed when he said “do not steal”. “What’s the matter, Renbob?”

“Oh, nothing at all!” Ren seemed to regain his normal serenity. “We must prove that we are doing things for the common good.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Grian agreed. “So I’ll build an RV, and you can drive yours here! Let’s get to work!”

~~~

“Take a look,” Scar said to Doc, handing over the binoculars. Doc peered intently through the device.

“No way, man! He’s teaming up with Renbob?” The creeper seemed shook, and to be honest, Scar was too. Both Ren and Grian were totally delusional, but they used it as a weapon.

The two Area 77 workers were sitting on top of a car, parked on a quickly terraformed hill opposite where the hippies had set up their base.

There were currently two RVs and a fire pit in the hippie base - the two RVs belonged to Grian and Ren each, and the fire pit Scar supposed to be a communal area.

“Grian’s found out that we’ve taken his time machine and he wants it back,” Doc remarked. “And he teamed up with Ren - why Ren?”

“Because Ren’s our self-made enemy, too,” Scar answered gloomily.

“They set up camp right outside of our wall, too,” Doc observed. “How annoying.”

Scar did agree that it was annoying, but was too busy watching the antics of the two energy-filled hermits as they built a base. They had a clear view of the side of Grian’s RV, and they could see the front of Ren’s.

Grian sensed the two Area 77 guys watching him and Ren. They had been doing so for around an hour, thinking that they were being sneaky. He and Ren had been deliberately putting on a show, even though they weren’t doing anything. Perhaps it was just satisfying to see Doc and Scar panic over each new thing they made, especially if it made no sense.

Perched on a hill, Scar (who was feeling more and more like Captain Angry Eyes every day) was scanning the area avidly. There was much room for the hippies to expand into, which worried him greatly. He told this to Doc.

“Pity we can’t add more walls around it,” Doc mused. “Unless …”

_ Oh, please don’t _ , Scar thought nervously. He really wasn’t in the mood to add a million more lengths of wall.

Renbob looked up from decorating the roof of his RV. The two Area 77 guys seemed to be sitting on top of their car, deep in thought.

“Psst, Grian,” he hissed. “Look at them.”

His hippie brother followed his instructions. “They seem to be very worried.”

“Let’s cheer them up a bit,” Ren suggested. An evil smile spread across Grian’s face.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I’ve got a chest full of peace banners inside my RV. Can you get a few please?” he asked tranquilly.

Grian hopped off the top of his own RV and Ren heard the opening and closing of a wooden door. A few seconds later, he came back out holding two banners with the peace sign dyed onto them. Grian handed a pink and blue one to Ren and kept a green and yellow one for himself.

High on the hill, Scar was watching their every move. “What are they  _ doing _ ? Doc, could you please pass me those binoculars?”

Doc handed the pair of binoculars over again and Scar peered through the lens. It looked like the two hippies were … dancing? While waving around peace banners? “Doc, you may want to see this.”

He handed the binoculars over again and watched as Doc’s face morphed with anger. “Those hippies! I’ll show them not to mock me!”

He began to stand up, but Scar grabbed onto his robot arm. He soon seemed to collect himself, and managed to control his rage. Scar then decided it would be best if they ceased to watch the hippies anger them and suggested that they leave. Doc agreed and soon the car on top of the hill was empty.

“Look at them leaving, man!” Grian remarked. “It’s surprising that Doc’s got such a short temper.”

“That is why we must teach them to be peaceful,” Ren answered peacefully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear, the world map download is the greatest thing ever created.
> 
> This chapter may be still a little short, but I promise you that the next chapter will be not only long, but filled with good content (perhaps including a certain Polish gambling addict?).
> 
> How many other words are synonyms of peaceful? Because I'm running out of words to describe Ren with.


	6. And so an old and new hermit came into existence again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a certain Keralis returns to Hermitcraft and Scar is oblivious to Doc not knowing things that he should know.

Scar squinted at the screen of his communicator.

<Docm77> scar

<Docm77> you might want to see this

<Docm77> meet me near the control tower

<FalseSymmetry> you might want to whisper because we can all see what you’re saying

Scar decided to ignore False and listen to Doc.

<GoodTimeWithScar> k, brt

He looked at Scara despairingly. He had planned to make her look a bit nicer, even though the build-off was over, but apparently the universe wouldn’t even let him do that. Sighing, he put on his elytra and flew over to Area 77.

Doc was waiting for him at the base of the control tower. Scar knew that from building it, there was no proper entrance from the dirt shelf he was standing on so what Doc was talking about was not to do with the tower.

He landed right in front of Doc, who was busy pacing. The creeper stopped pacing to start walking to a nearby nether portal. Scar was opening his mouth to ask why exactly Doc had called him there and then was walking away, when he discovered that something was not quite right with the nether portal.

There was a block missing. An entire side of the portal was missing, yet the portal still seemed to be lit. Scar’s jar dropped.

“Do you know why this happened?” he asked carefully. Doc shook his head.

“Not at all. I broke some blocks and it stayed lit. I’ve put the blocks through testing and it seems like they’re normal obsidian blocks,” he answered.

“That’s really, really weird,” Scar said.

“It is,” Doc agreed. “The thing is, going through might be dangerous, and we can’t move it to a hangar because there’s no guarantee it’ll happen again. We should -”

Before he could finish the sentence, the cursed portal made a sound that a normal nether portal would make if someone went through it, and out popped a man who seemed to be on fire.

“Freeze in the name of the self-proclaimed base security,” Scar ordered, taking out his trident, words tumbling out of his mouth. The man, who seemed to be quite short and was dressed in a cyan shirt and blue pants, collapsed onto the grassy ground.

Scar stood guard with the trident as Doc stepped closer to examine the man. He took out a water bucket and poured it all over the man, who was now no longer on fire.

The man sat up, and Scar noticed how he had extraordinarily big eyes and an expression of perpetual shock. “Wh-who are you?”

“Who are  _ you _ ? We’re asking the questions here,” Doc growled. The man shrank back against the portal.

“My name is Keralis,” the man answered in a quaking voice.

Scar almost dropped the trident in surprise. Keralis? He remembered the older hermits’ tales of previous worlds when there were many more hermits. He’d never met any of the hermits in the past worlds, being only found by the large group two worlds ago, in a mesa biome, but he distinctly recalled a tale from Xisuma about a builder named Keralis.

“Doc, do you remember anything about him from X’s stories?” Scar asked. “Because I sort of do.”

“Not at all,” Doc said nonchalantly. Turning to face Keralis, he said, “I think we should contain him in a hangar.”

Before Scar or Keralis could protest, he hit the newcomer over the head with the flat of a sword, knocking him unconscious.

~~~

When Keralis woke up, everything was dark.

He blinked rapidly, trying to adjust his eyes. He could feel a bed underneath him, and sat up.

Where was he? Directly in front of him was a wall made out of ice. He looked around the room and found it to be quite large and made of mostly green terracotta, from what he could see in the dim light. There were a few end rods and torches dotted around the room, but it was still quite dark.

His head throbbed and he gingerly touched it. There were no wounds, but he felt as though he had been hit over the head with a blunt object.

Suddenly, the past events all rushed back to him. How he had escaped death by lava by going through the nether portal. And then he had ended up in a strange land, where there were trident-wielding officers and people who looked suspiciously like Docm77 who hit him over the head with a sword.

He stood up, wincing at the jarring pain in his head. He walked around a bit, finding what looked like a prison jumpsuit and a sign saying “Change. We’ll be back.”

He supposed he was a prisoner of some sort now, so he decided it wouldn’t hurt to start obeying instructions. He changed quickly into the orange jumpsuit and found that it was his size. Strange. Usually people didn’t make clothes that he could wear because he was too short.

He folded his normal cyan and blue clothes carefully and put them where the jumpsuit had been. He then sat down on the bed attentively.

Not too long after, the sound of two voices could be heard as the two people he had seen before he had been knocked out arrived on the other side of the ice wall. Keralis realized that the other side of the ice wall led somewhere, and he tried to see through the translucent substance.

“He’s squinting,” said the half-creeper who looked like Doc. “That’s odd behaviour.”

“It is,” agreed the officer whose eyes looked angry. He scribbled something down on a piece of paper.

“He says he’s Keralis, but I don’t believe him,” the Doc look-alike whispered to the man with angry eyes.

“Hmm…” the man with angry eyes mused. “He’s gotta somehow prove he’s the real one. And Keralis is good at building, right? So let’s make him build a house.”

“Hey, you,” the Doc clone barked. “Take this.”

He took out a pickaxe, broke one of the ice blocks, and then threw four shulker boxes at Keralis. Keralis walked forward and picked them up.

“You say that you’re Keralis, now you’ve got to prove it,” “Doc” barked. “Build something with these resources and we’ll consider letting you go.”

“I heard you the first time,” Keralis mumbled.

The man with angry eyes sighed. “Look. Come to the glass.”

Keralis inferred that when he said glass, he meant the ice. He shuffled forward.

“I’m nice,” the man with angry eyes said. He took his diamond helmet off. “Look how nice I am. We’re nice people, we just want to make sure that you’re safe to be on the server.”

Keralis wanted to believe that these two people were truly nice, so he did, ignoring the feeling that clung to his insides that told him that they were not.

“Okay,” he said.

“Go on,” the creeper man told him. Keralis set the shulker boxes on the ground and looked inside.All four of them were filled with generic building materials - oak logs, birch logs, glass, grass blocks, furnaces and coal, quartz and two bushes.

He looked up. The two men were still there. The angry-eyed man chuckled. “We’ll be watching you.”

Now thoroughly unnerved, Keralis scanned his brain for what he could build with the given materials. There was a lot of quartz, so he could make the walls with that. There were stacks upon stacks of birch logs, so he decided to use a lot of that as well.

He grabbed the quartz, the furnaces and the coal blocks and began smelting them into smooth quartz blocks. Meanwhile, he converted the birch logs into a whole lot of planks, since he didn’t particularly like the texture of the logs.

He began building a basic outline of the house he was going to build.

~~~

Scar watched carefully as the man who called himself Keralis began placing blocks. He’d gone down the birch path, and Scar noted that down.

Beside him, Doc was tense and standing still. Scar didn’t really have the guts to tell him that he was probably scaring the subject.

He switched back to noting down the subject’s every move. When the subject had begun building the walls with quartz, he immediately noted down the time and what shape the house was. Everything the subject was doing seemed to fit with how X had described him.

He noted how the subject replaced some of the sandstone on the floor with light gray concrete powder. The subject seemed to know his way around building, and Scar was sure that this was indeed Keralis.

After the main house was done, Scar watched curiously as the subject began decorating. The use of trapdoors as folding doors and quartz stairs confirmed that even if this wasn’t Keralis, the subject was still a great builder.

After around half an hour of building, Doc spoke up. “Right, that’s enough.”

~~~

Keralis turned around to see the angry-eyed man breaking the ice blocks while the Doc look-alike held a trident. He jumped down from the roof.

Neither of his captors said anything. He moved closer and all the Doc-look alike did was tighten his grip on the trident.

_ Does this mean I can just go free now? _ Keralis asked himself. He doubted it, but it was worth a shot.

He bolted through the doorway where the ice once was and straight ahead. He could see the blue sky through a narrow opening. Adrenaline coursed through his veins.

He took a fleeting glance back and the two captors, who now had tridents out. One struck him painfully, cutting into his skin and releasing a bit of blood, but he kept going, bursting into the sunlight.

He ducked into a corner, right next to the opening, hoping that they would run right past him. Once he was free he could go find someone to help him. He had a pickaxe and an axe, and some golden carrots -

The Doc-looking man rushed out first and immediately saw him. The angry-eyed man followed immediately after. The Doc-looking man was looking dangerously angry, but instead of saying anything, he began walking back to the room, evidently meaning for Keralis to follow him.

Keralis looked back at the bright, happy world, weighing his chances of escape. But a prod in the back reminded him that the angry-eyed man was right there, holding a trident. He hung his head and followed the Doc look-alike back into his prison.

He sat dutifully on the bed, but instead of questioning him, his captors replaced the wall of ice and disappeared. Keralis wanted to know where they were and what their problem was, but he found out that he himself had a problem. A creeper.

The furry green menace, the same species as Doc and the Doc look-alike, stealthily leaped down behind Keralis from the roof of the house. Keralis saw it just in time and bolted to the other side of the room.

The menace followed him. Keralis really, really didn’t want to die, even though his respawn point was probably the bed right there. But what if it wasn’t?

The creeper followed him right to the back of the room where the interior of the house was supposed to be, and Keralis bolted towards the ice wall, hoping that he would be out of the creeper’s field of vision.

He hammered on the ice, yelling. He saw the angry-eyed man appear, and pointed towards the creeper, now happily walking around the inside of the house.

He didn’t get to see what the angry-eyed man did next, for the creeper had seen him and he ran away, screaming. He ran inside the house, and the creeper followed him. Running around the house to get to the front, he thought maybe being killed was a good thing because he might respawn somewhere else.

He ran back to the wall of ice. “Help! Somebody, help!”

No-one came, and Keralis was forced to run away again as the creeper followed him.

Frankly, he was more worried about the house than himself - there was a chance that he would respawn somewhere else, and dying would fill up his hunger bar without him needing to eat any of the golden carrots.

He ran around for a while, trying to escape the creeper while yelling for help.

After a while, he heard two voices outside. Turning around, he saw his two captors again. He tried to tell them to do something, but they simply laughed and said nothing.

So Keralis began running around the room again, hoping the creeper would just despawn.

He ran to the back of the house, and while he was out of the creeper’s sight, he ran to the ice wall again and banged his fist on it. The two men on the other side watched him, before the man with angry eyes broke one of the blocks and passed a trident to him.

Not needing to be told what to do, Keralis threw the trident at the creeper. It didn’t die. He tried again. This time, he missed the shot. Luckily, the creeper wasn’t smart enough to figure out that there was someone throwing a trident at it beyond what it could see.

He tried again, but missed again. This time, the creeper was following him now. He threw the trident and it made contact, but the creeper was still alive.

_ How hard is it to kill this thing? _ he thought, frustrated. He threw the trident one last time and the creeper disintegrated into particles and a small amount of gunpowder.  _ Finally. _

Now that his enemy was dead, he turned to the two captors. They backed away from the wall, probably not because Keralis was holding a trident at the ready. He watched them calmly, and the Doc look-alike broke the ice block in the middle of the bottom row and threw a golden carrot into it. Keralis was confused.

The Doc look-alike took back the golden carrot and then threw a diamond. Keralis figured that he was miming out an action. So he threw the item he had in his hand - the trident - threw the hole. The Doc look-alike took the trident and closed the hole.

_ Oh. _ Now Keralis was weaponless again. The man with angry eyes walked away and Keralis took to asking very politely to the Doc look-alike to let him go.

“Look, Doc,” Keralis said, assuming the man was Doc. “You know me! We’re friends! Now let me go!”

“Nice try,” the Doc look-alike chuckled. “Hey, Angry Eyes!” he called, apparently to the angry-eyed man whose name was apparently Angry Eyes.

Angry Eyes reappeared. The two men conferred and Keralis was very nervous. What if they were discussing the best way to kill him?

“Let me out, please,” Keralis begged. “You can see that I’m Keralis. Come on, man!”

Angry Eyes was looking at his house. “That looks like a delightful little beach house. I think it’s very well built.”

Without replying, the Doc look-alike broke two of the ice blocks and walked through. “Step back,” he ordered Keralis.

Keralis did step back. The Doc look-alike and Angry Eyes went up to the house he had built.

“I’m liking this,” Angry Eyes said. “Look at the seating area, look at the windows - it’s all so nice. The question is, would an alien have thought to build like this?”

“Very impressive, building this in under an hour,” the Doc look-alike complimented. Keralis felt very flattered. “Another factor that could prove that he’s the real Keralis.”

“It looks very similar to the house X described you building,” Angry Eyes added. X? That surely could only mean one person!

_ Shashwammy! _ Keralis thought excitedly.

“Now, Angry Eyes. Keralis is a master of building, and you are a master of building too. You have to judge if this is a Keralis built,” the Doc-look alike said.

“Me? I’ve never even met the man,” Angry Eyes protested.

“L-look at my face! My eyes, my eyes, nothing but my eyes,” Keralis said hurriedly, a line he was known for.

The Doc look-alike inspected him as Angry Eyes walked around the house.

“I am going to say that he’s ninety percent Keralis and ten percent alien,” Angry Eyes declared as he finished his tour. “It’s Keralis.”

“Yay!” Keralis cheered halfheartedly. “Can I go now?”

“Yeah, sure,” the Doc look-alike said. “By the way, my name is Docm77.”

“I knew it was you!” Keralis ran up to him. “Why didn’t you recognize me?”

Doc didn’t answer. Angry Eyes cleared his throat. “And my name is GoodTimesWithScar, but you can call me Scar or Captain Angry Eyes.”

_ Ohh… Captain Angry Eyes. I suppose that’s why Doc simply called him Angry Eyes _ , Keralis mused.

Scar watched from the side as Doc gave Keralis forty-six diamonds.

“For all your hard work, here, take these diamonds,” Doc instructed. Scar watched as Keralis’s face morphed into shock.

“Thank you,” he said as he took them and put them into his inventory. Scar thought about this act of kindness.

_ See, Scar? Doc’s fine. He’s just a bit dramatic. But he’s still the Doc you and everybody know _ , Scar thought to himself, trying to make himself believe it.

Something still didn’t seem right, though. Maybe it was because Keralis became unconscious when Doc knocked him over, or that Doc was becoming quite tense when Keralis talked to him. He decided that he was just imagining things.

He followed Doc who was leading Keralis out of the door and by the look of things, giving Keralis a tour of Area 77.

Keralis seemed to think Area 77 was very pretty, and Scar was grateful that he thought so. He’d put a lot of work into it.

They got to a redstone contraption near the broken portal that Scar’ couldn’t remember for the life of him what it did.

“What is that?” Keralis asked, pointing at the ravager in the device.

Doc shrugged. “It’s harmless. You can pet it.”

Scar started to protest, but it was too late. Keralis had patted the ravager on the head and died.

His communicator buzzed with the death message.

“Are you kidding? You killed him!” Scar shouted. Doc laughed.

“Calm down, he’ll respawn somewhere where he can go somewhere. We can’t lead him out of Area 77 alive anyway since he’ll know where everything is in relation to other places.”

Scar thought about it. That sounded reasonable, except it didn’t.

Anyway, Keralis had already respawned. No harm, no foul.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. That was one long chapter. I think it's the longest chapter in this work yet.
> 
> I tried as hard as I could to copy the original dialogue from the episode. I think I did pretty well. Even if I did terribly, at least Keralis is here. Keralis will right all wrongs. Actually, all hermits will right all wrongs because they're all perfect and their perfection will cast light and mend all broken parts.
> 
> Next chapter is some quality False.


	7. And so Scar befriended False

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Impulses are murdered and Doc is proven to be insane.

Hangar here, hangar there. That pretty much summed up Scar’s life over the next few days.

Area 77 almost doubled in size. Scar built hangars left, right and center as Doc poured over documents and sheets of paper.

It seemed like the whole world wanted to know what was going on inside the facility, as Scar and Doc had caught multiple hermits hiding in the trees and spying on their activities. All of these spies had been scared away, but it didn’t deter more people from trying.

Not only that, but the newest hermit had apparently declared war on Area 77 as well. Keralis had built his modern home on a hill that overlooked the main runway of Area 77. It wasn’t really surprising that Keralis didn’t like them - Doc had purposely pranked him with the ravager.

He was doing his daily morning patrol, killing any unfortunate mobs that had wandered into his line of sight. Flying overhead, he threw his trident at a herd of cows, splitting them apart and killing one.

He didn’t like the nagging feeling that being on Doc’s side was a bad thing, and drowned it in lots and lots of killing-mobs thoughts.

Doc had been working extremely hard, often not going to sleep at night. When Scar asked him why, he wouldn’t say anything. Scar found this behavior strange but decided not to say anything, just because he didn’t want to bother anyone.

He’d been in Falsewell regularly, talking to False, who was basically the only person who wanted to talk to him and he wanted to talk to him. Doc was busy and everyone else was avoiding Area 77. So he visited Falsewell every day, giving False tips on what to put in the museum and how to make a proper space shape. False seemed to enjoy his company, being also a social outcast now.

He finished off the cows and made his way to the diner - now named the Dusty Diner - and said hello to False, dropping off the newest accessible edition of Doc’s alien files. Scar stole some documents from Doc every day to bring to False, who was trying to figure out how Area 77 worked. False was pretty much his only friend now, so it didn’t really hurt to betray Doc.

“Hello to you, too,” False said as she picked up the papers and scanned through them. “Thanks. I’ll study these very carefully - the articles seem to hold lots of information.”

“Actually, these are pretty recent ones, so I need to return them,” Scar said. “Doc might notice they’re missing.”

“Sure,” False said absentmindedly, flipping from page to page.

“Are you listening?” Scar asked, exasperated. Sometimes False was even weirder than Doc.

“Yes, you want them back once I’m finished with them,” False droned as she read through the page.

“Not when you’re finished with them, when I go back to Area 77 today,” Scar corrected. “I can always give them to you again tomorrow.”

“Sure,” False replied.

Scar wasn’t going to get anything out of her like this, so he tried to divert her attention. “I heard that you’re opening a park?”

In an instant, False had tucked away the documents in her ender chest and sprung up. “Yes! I am! Let’s take a look!”

She bolted through the door, and to the crossroads, when she promptly turned left and ran down the road. Scar followed her at a slower pace.

False was waiting for him at the archway he had seen earlier, marked with a sign saying “Falsewell Park”. She was playing with a dog outside and seemed to have barely broken a sweat, when Scar was panting from exhaustion. He really needed to walk to places more - he’d gotten too used to flying.

“So this is Falsewell Park!” False declared, motioning to the archway and the wall around it. Behind the wall was a large patch of green, filled with trees. She stood up, petting the dog. “This is Laika. You know, the space dog.”

“Sure,” Scar answered, but he did not know. “What are you planning to do with the space?”

“So, I was thinking like a hill, where you can have a great view of a valley. There’s even a river here,” False said, walking over the large hill. Scar followed and saw that there was a naturally generated river on the other side. “You’re the best terraformer I know, Scar. Can you help me terraform the hill?”

Scar scanned through his mental calendar and saw nothing booked except for “worry about Doc 24/7”. He could still terraform while doing that. “Sure.”

“Great, thanks!” False beamed. “So I decided I wanted to use stone slabs and gravel to make the path. Then we could make like a main attraction here, and on the other side of the hill visitors could have a great view of the river!”

Scar scanned the surroundings. He could work with that. “But False, you do realize you built power lines right across this park?”

False didn’t seem deterred. “That’s fine. It was on purpose.”

Scar doubted that, but didn’t say anything. “Right. Do you want to get started?”

“Sure!” False replied, before Scar’s communicator buzzed. He took it from his pocket.

<Docm77> scar, please come back to area 77

<Docm77> and stop talking to false

<Docm77> i know you’ve been stealing my documents and giving them to her

Both Scar and False’s heads snapped up.  _ Shoot _ , Scar thought.

“How does he know?” False asked.

“I’m not the best thief in the world,” was the only reply Scar would come up with.

His communicator buzzed again.

<impulseSV> oo, is there something you’re not telling us, false?

False made a half growl, half grunting sound as she snapped her communicator shut. “I am going to MURDER Impulse!”

“Err, see you?” Scar tried.

“I need to return the documents first,” False said. She placed an ender chest on the ground and took out the documents, passing them to Scar. “I hope you don’t die. Thanks for the help you were able to give.”

Scar waved as she promptly stowed the ender chest away and shot into the sky.

Heart in mouth, he began flying back towards the hangar where he knew Doc would be waiting for him.

~~~

False stormed through the nether purposefully.

She knew exactly where Impulse was going to be. In his base, in his storage system. Why on earth he spent so much time there was beyond her. But it was true that she spent a lot of time in her own storage system back at her main base. Or used to - now she spent all of her time in Falsewell.

_ Hush. Time to kill Impulse _ . She cleared her mind of other thoughts.

She didn’t kill the other hermits a lot. To be fair, she didn’t kill the other hermits at all except when they deserved it. Usually she could talk the problem out with them but Impulse had been getting on her nerves for a long time.

She had decided to walk through the tunnel Impulse didn’t deserve to be the cause of her using rocks and wearing down her elytra.

The tunnel was very long, but the thought of sweet, sweet revenge kept her going. She saw no-one else in the tunnel and she was both relieved and disappointed.

She finally activated her elytra to dive down into the main nether hub when she got to the end of the tunnel. She found the portal with the banners with Impulse’s ‘i’ logo on them and went through.

~~~

Impulse was sorting his inventory when he heard the sound of someone coming through his portal. He knew immediately that it was False, coming to take revenge.

He immediately took off all his armor and drank an invisibility potion. He hadn’t come unprepared, because he knew that he wouldn’t be able to beat False in a normal fight.

Unfortunately, his dogs had been taken out for a walk by Zedaph earlier so they could not helpfully bite False once she inevitably struck him.

He pressed himself against the wall, trying to be as out of the way as possible so that it was harder for her to reach him if she decided to start waving her arms around to find him. Knowing False, this technique wasn’t likely but he still did it - just in case.

He saw her storming into his sight and he froze, hoping the particles from the invisibility potion weren’t too thick. Her eyes immediately fell on where he was. He held his breath, hoping that it was just a coincidence that she was looking at exactly where he was.

“Look, Impulse,” False sighed. “I don’t know whether you expected me to be stupid, but you’ve literally got six beacons around your base, all of them at full power. You can’t possibly expect me to not be able to see the particles.”

_ Shoot _ , Impulse thought as he realized how right she was. Well, now that the jig was up, it wouldn’t hurt to put on some armor to better protect himself from False.

“Look, False, it was a joke!” he protested, trying to dissuade her. False was usually quite diplomatic, so why was she trying to kill him now?

_ Maybe she is hiding something from us. Maybe I did guess correctly _ , one part of his brain thought smugly. Somehow Impulse thought that it wouldn’t be a good idea to share that thought with False at the moment.

False scoffed at him. “Enough talking. Either you surrender now, and die, or you put up a fight, and die. Don’t forget, the last bed you slept in was blown up by a creeper. Which means a lovely journey from spawn when you inevitably die.”

“Then it makes no difference if I surrender or not,” Impulse replied.

He saw False roll her eyes and in a flash, she had her sword out and was holding it to his throat.

“Now, I don’t want to make this too difficult, Impulse, so answer me - do you admit that you were wrong and a total idiot, or do you want to put up a fight?”

Impulse did not reply and instead kicked False’s shins. She winced and let go, and he proceeded to bolt towards his nether portal.

False saw him running and took out her bow. With her impeccable aim, she struck him squarely in the chest.

He dissolved into white particles and what was in his inventory.

False didn’t bother picking his stuff up for him. Her communicator buzzed and she saw the message that had popped up in chat.

_ impulseSV was shot by FalseSymmetry _

~~~

Scar was trying to walk even slower now. He was almost at Doc’s location when his communicator buzzed.

_ impulseSV was shot by FalseSymmetry _

_ Wow, that was fast, _ Scar thought.  _ Or maybe I’m just slow. _

He had been walking at basically a snail’s pace for the last twenty minutes. He didn’t particularly want to see Doc, but he didn’t want to make Doc angry by not moving at all, so he was compromising the two.

He found Doc in a hangar that wasn’t exactly a hangar. The hangar that Doc was in was meant to be a hangar, but instead had just been converted into Doc’s workspace. The most notable feature of the hangar was a hole in the ground that housed Doc’s iron farm.

Doc had set up office on the left wall of the hangar. There were a few chests with documents in them, a few tables with documents strewn all over them, and a particularly angry-looking Doc glaring at Scar.

“So,” he hissed. “Why exactly have you been stealing documents and giving them to False?”

_ Scar, you don’t have to be ashamed. You did it because False is your friend _ , Scar told himself. He looked Doc dead in the eye. “Because False is my friend.”

“I’m your friend too,” Doc growled. “And you betrayed my trust by stealing my documents?”

“Look Doc, I know that stealing is bad but you’re not even using the documents anymore. Plus, it’s not fair that you’re withholding information from the hermits. If you want to protect them, at least let them know what they’re getting protected from,” Scar shot back.

“Not the documents you’re holding in your hands right now,” Doc observed. “I was looking for them in my chests and found a lot of other documents missing as well.”

“Doc, I just wanted to help False, because you say that you’re my friend but you don’t act like a friend. It’s just a bit of fun and games. We’re all friends on Hermitcraft, and you’re taking things too far,” Scar pleaded. “Look, just - just take a break! You’re overworking yourself just for a game.”

“This is  _ not  _ a game,” Doc growled. “And I  _ am  _ your friend.”

“If you’re my friend, then you’ll take my advice,” Scar replied. “Please, Doc. You’re not acting like yourself. You need to take a break!”

“SHUT UP!” Doc screamed. Scar took a step back as Doc advanced on him, holding a sword. “I do not need to take a break!”

Scar knew he was probably going to die, but he was too worried about Doc. It was time to do what False had told him to so long ago. “You. Need. To. Take. A. Break.”

“And YOU need to shut up and realize that  _ I _ am the boss of Area 77!” Doc growled. “If you don’t, I will personally come kill you.”

“Dying doesn’t matter to me anymore. I’ve got the highest death count,” Scar replied. “I value your mental health more than I value my life.”

“Then I will find a way to permanently delete myself,” Doc hissed.

Scar froze. “You wouldn’t do that.”

“Believe me, I would.” Doc’s face contorted into a malicious smile.

Scar knew that the old Doc wouldn’t delete himself, but the new Doc certainly would. And if he wanted to save Doc, then he had to keep Doc from deleting himself. Which meant keeping silent.

He could find a way, couldn’t he? With the help of the other hermits, who could help him dig up the old Doc. It wasn’t like Doc would know about it, being in Area 77 all day.

But something was terribly, terribly wrong with Doc. Normal Doc was gruff at times, but he knew what was good for him and took advice well. New Doc absolutely refused to listen to reason and was malicious at least and insane at most.

He needed to save his friend, but more importantly, he needed to find out what had happened to Doc in the first place.

He bowed his head and said nothing.

“I thought so,” Doc chuckled. “Now, you will steal no more of my documents and you will not meddle in my affairs again - you know what the punishment will be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That False vs Impulse battle was completely unplanned, both the communicator one and the actual fight. Don't worry, the war is not over yet.
> 
> Also, I'm starting school again in a few minutes so that means less writing but I only have to write a few more chapters before it's finished.
> 
> Also also, have a nice day.
> 
> Edit: This morning I forgot to do this because it was really early and my brain wasn't working but:  
> Scar: TAKE A BREAK  
> Doc: I am on my way  
> Scar: Run away with us for the summer, let's go upstate!


	8. And so a hippie brother was lost and needed to be found again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which alliances are made, nuclear reactor cores and stolen and signs are put up

“That is really, really bad,” False said worriedly. “Should we go to X?”

“He could find out about it and delete himself before X can stop him,” Scar pointed out.

“How about getting Cub to use the Concorp drones to spy on him? That could be useful,” False suggested.

“He already blew some up. Plus, he would immediately know that it was from Cub and therefore from me,” Scar said.

“I could talk to ‘im,” Stress offered.

“That’s not a good idea,” False replied.

The three of them had gathered in the warehouse of the Falsewell Area 77 space center, contrary to the usual meeting spot in the diner. Stress had come simply because she was worried and she was a decent human being.

“Yo, what’re you guys all doing in here?” a familiar voice asked. They all turned to see Ren - dressed as Ren, not Renbob - came through the door.

“Coming up with a plan that is none of your business,” Scar snapped. He wouldn’t have the hippies interfering with his plans again.

“Don’t be mean, maybe Ren can help,” False scolded. “Come on in.”

Ren looked extremely uncomfortable but joined them in sitting on the floor anyway. “What’s the problem?”

“Doc’s gone insane,” Scar said helpfully.

Stress rolled her eyes. “‘e threatened to delete ‘imself permanent;y if Scar didn’t stay out o’ his business.”

“ … oh.”

“You were Doc’s closest friend before he started the Area 77 thing. What can you tell us about him?” False asked.

“Probably not more than you already know. No-one knows much about Doc. But I know that he normally couldn’t behave like this,” Ren answered.

“That’s what I thought,” Scar sighed.

“Do you want me to talk to him?” Ren asked.

“Not at all. You and Grian are probably the only other people who Doc’ll blow up at apart from Scar,” False snapped.

Everyone’s communicator buzzed.

<Grian> ren, meet me in hippieland

“Well, I’ve got to go,” Ren announced importantly.

“Don’t tell Grian, please,” Scar said as Ren got up to leave. “He might rush over and start shaking Doc.”

“Will do.” Ren saluted before disappearing through the door.

<Docm77> scar, come meet me on the big lawn facing hippieland

“Will you do it?” Stress asked.

“I guess I’ve got to,” Scar replied unhappily.

“We’ll look out for you,” False reassured him. He nodded and exited the museum.

He launched into the sky and seconds later, met Doc on the giant grass patch between the hangars and Hippieland.

“I know where the nuclear reactor is,” Doc said immediately after Scar landed next to him. “That fool Renbob hung it on the back of his van. We’re getting it back.”

“Sure,” Scar answered.

“And can you see how much they’ve expanded their base?” Doc asked.

“No,” Scar replied shortly. “I can’t see anything they’ve made.”

It was true. On the other side of the wall was a thick line of trees that blocked the view of anything on the other side.

“Well they’ve got a giant vegetable garden and a mushroom garden,” Doc informed him

_ Sounds lovely. Almost makes me wish I was a hippie _ , Scar thought sarcastically.

“I think we can just fly in and grab it,” Doc continued. “They won;t be able to stop us.”

“Sure,” Scar agreed.

Doc beckoned to him, and the two of them launched into the sky. As they flew above the rapidly expanding hippie commune, Scar saw what Doc had told him - there were now mushrooms everywhere and a vegetable garden. It was definitely Renbob’s style.

“We have to land away from the RV’s because Grian is in his right now and Renbob is somewhere underground,” Doc reported. Scar nodded and they landed in the giant mushroom garden.

Scar took in the half piece of art, half eyesore. There was a giant red toadstool in the middle made out of mushroom blocks, and around it were smaller mushrooms and tents made out of wood and brightly-colored wool.

“You know, these tents remind me of the first base I built with you guys. There was a giant mesa and I built like a campsite,” Scar remarked. Doc ignored him.

They strolled through the garden. Doc obviously only wanted to get the reactor core, but Scar wanted to enjoy Ren’s building skills.

They had arrived on the furthest side from the group of RV’s, so they had to walk across the entire mushroom garden before they got to an exit. Scar had just noticed that there was a wall going around the whole thing, which was slightly out of character, but he wasn’t going to question it due to the wall being beautifully made from logs and planks.

In the distance Scar could see the group of RV’s parked around a campfire. Scar knew that Grian would be in one, so it wasn’t much of a surprise when Doc told him to turn left and detour instead of go straight ahead and be seen by Grian.

There was another wall surrounding something on the left, and Scar soon found out when he went inside that it was the lovely tranquil vegetable garden that he had seen when he had been flying. This was obviously also built by Renbob, and Scar admired the hippie’s use of water in his build.

Through the middle of the vegetables was an incredibly detailed path made of campfires and slabs. There were lanterns dotted around it and everything just seemed to radiate an aura of peace. Something he hadn’t seen for a long time.

They emerged from the garden and arrived at the group of RV’s. Grian’s RV was right in front of them, but the vehicle’s great height allowed Scar and Doc to remain unseen even if there was someone inside. They sneaked around to Renbob’s RV where, sure enough, Doc’s nuclear reactor core hung on the back.

“There it is!” Doc hissed. He bolted to the core and in a few swings of his pickaxe, had broken down all of the iron trapdoors, iron bars and coloured glass that made up the reactor core.

“Come on, let’s go!”

~~~

Grian was having an amazing day. He’d had an amazing sleep last night, and this morning had woken up energetic and refreshed. He’d spent lots of time this morning working on the underground cave, and was just getting prepared for his mid-morning nap when he had heard some noise outside.

At first dismissing it as Ren getting up to something again, he’d realized that Ren was down decorating the cave. He’d immediately snapped to action and rushed outside, and saw none other than Docm77 and GoodTimesWithScar, sneaking out of the hippie commune,

“Hey!” he shouted. The two criminals looked back at him and began running down the boardwalk in the vegetable garden. “Wait, don’t run! We’re peaceful! Let’s talk this out!”

They either didn’t hear him or ignored him because they had soon taken flight, leaving Grian bewildered and confused.

“What the hell was that?” he asked himself.

“What the hell was that?” Renbob asked. Grian turned around to see his fellow hippie emerging from his RV.

“Area 77,” he answered nervously.

Ren stood next to him and surveyed their surroundings. “Doesn’t look like anything’s broken or missing.”

Grian walked around the base. “Yeah.”

“Wait, never mind. Something’s definitely missing.” Ren’s voice was shaky. “THEY STOLE MY NUCLEAR REACTOR CORE!”

“Didn’t you steal it from them in the first place, meaning that it’s rightfully theirs?” Grian asked drily.

Ren’s face contorted into an expression that was partly angry, partly embarrassed and partly trying not to smile. “Well, they stole it back, which means that they’re in the wrong too!”

“Wait … are you sure they didn’t sneak underground?” Grian asked worriedly.

Ren thought about it. “I am very sure. I have excellent senses and they wouldn’t dare to anger me.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Ren seemed happy to sulk in a corner for the time being.

Grian looked up at the sky. The gathering clouds meant that a storm was coming. And Doc was most powerful during a storm with his Channeling trident. They needed to shift power out of Doc’s hands and into theirs.

And what else was Doc good at? Redstone. But he wasn’t unmatched in that department. There were many hermits that could be made into a redstone hippie.

“Ren, it looks like we’ll need another man on the team,” Grian announced.

~~~

Ren had been extremely confused when Grian tried to explain the concept to him, mostly because Grian was being really, REALLY dramatic. The builder had refused to speak in anything but full sentences that sounded like something Joe Hills would say.

“So you’re saying we need another hippie,” Ren stated.

“We must journey far and wide in search of a fellow hippie brother who will help us overthrow the oppressors!” Grian announced grandly.

Ren sighed and buried his face in his hands.

“Let us go to iTrade, out the front of which is an often-used portal to the nether dimension! There we will post a sign that will draw our long-lost hippie brother towards us!” Grian continued.

Ren wanted to both cry and laugh and settled for both. While the tears were streaming down his face, he asked Grian, “So, do you want to go now?”

“Of course we shall go now!” Grian had already taken flight because he was not limited by the need of an elytra. High in the sky, Ren heard him say something that sounded like, “and we will kidnap and torture him until he agrees to become one of us.”

Shrugging to no-one in particular, Ren put on his elytra and followed Grian into the sky, where it was just starting to rain.

They got to the nearest portal which was the nether portal in Hermitville. Ren followed Grian as his hippie brother enthusiastically flew all the way to the iTrade portal. Grian took a bow as Ren landed next to him and they stepped through together.

The only person they could see when they got to the other side was Xisuma, who was apparently restocking his kelp shop.

“Greetings, Eks-eye-zoomah voyide!” Grian called. At least he was pronouncing X’s name the usual way.

The admin looked up. “Oh hey, Grian and Ren! What brings you here? I haven’t seen you for a long time.”

Ren would really like to get the job done before Grian could make an even bigger fool of them, in front of the admin no less, but things didn’t seem to be going his way.

“We are searching for our brother, a redstone hippie who was lost and needs to be found!” Grian announced. Behind the helmet, Ren saw X raise his eyebrows.

“A redstone hippie, you say,” X echoed. “I heard that Impulse was a bit bored with his usual redstone projects. You might want to ask him.”

“That is a great suggestion,” Grian replied, “for I have noticed that we are standing right in front of Impulse’s shop of enchanted books!”

“Indeed.” X nodded. Ren might be imagining things, but he seemed to sense that the admin was trying not to laugh. He decided to intervene.

“Okay, thanks for the advice, X!” he said pointedly. “Grian, why don’t we pop down a few signs here?”

“That sounds like a marvelous idea,” Grian agreed. “Farewell, Eks-eye-zoomah voyide! I hope we meet again soon!”

“You too,” X answered. He turned around to do some more restocking while Grian and Ren turned back to the nether portal.

“I think we should build a pillar not directly in front of the portal but not too far away from it,” Ren began, before realizing that Grian had already built a pillar made of jungle wood planks. On it was one oak sign.

He watched intently as the other hippie began carving letters into the sign. After he had run out of space on the first one, Grian put down another sign and continued.

The two signs soon read: WANTED! Redstone based hippie to help fight the MAN. To apply, please contact Grian and Renbob for an interview.

“You say that we’re looking for a hippie brother, but the sign sounds like we’re hiring someone for a job,” Renbob remarked.

“We do not want to overwhelm this hippie brother with our hippie customs at once. Besides, many people on Hermitcraft only speak the language of businessmen,” Grian said poshly.

Ren finally decided to ignore him.

~~~

“We’ve got a reply!” Grian announced.

Ren’s head snapped up from the path of grass he was lying on. The two men had returned to Hippieland and were lounging around the campfire.

He took out his communicator.

<impulseSV> i heard the hippies want a redstone-based brother?

<impulseSV> i could fit that role

<Grian> excellent

<Grian> meet us at the commune noon tomorrow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is mostly a build-up chapter, because next chapter will be the one in which Impulse joins the hippies. Also don't ask me why I made Grian so dramatic at the end of the chapter, I just felt like it.


	9. And so Impulse was interviewed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Impulses are tested and pools of lava are revealed.

Impulse peered at his reflection in the water streams and smoothed down his hair one last time before stepping through his nether portal.

He’d been preparing for the interview for the last three hours, practicing his smile and polite laugh. He really, really wanted to try something new because trying to beat Tango in efficient farming wasn’t as entertaining as it had been before, considering they had been doing it for the last four worlds they’d been in.

Being a hippie didn’t sound very bad. Apart from the apparent lack of hygiene, the flowers and the hippie bros sounded quite pleasant, actually.

He launched himself into the air and up into where the four tunnels began (or ended, but he was choosing to have a positive outlook on life). He chose the eastern tunnel and began the long journey to Hermitville.

After exiting the Hermitville nether portal and almost crashing into a few shulker boxes that he had seen last time he was there and they were STILL THERE.

He flew over Hermitland to get to the hippie commune. Not a lot had changed considering everyone except for Scar, Doc, Grian, Ren and False were avoiding the 1.14 areas.

He did see Falsewell though, which was looking … better than he expected, which was saying a lot.

He flew over the hippie commune, which was looking really nice, with all of the flowers and mushrooms. There were a few RV’s parked together around what seemed like a community area and he aimed to land there, seeing both Ren and Grian standing there.

“Hello, Impulse,” Grian greeted him.

Impulse didn’t know what to say so he just stood there awkwardly and said, “Hi.”

“Welcome to the hippie commune! Myself and Rendog are the two native hippies in here.” Grian and Ren bowed.

“Actually, my name is Renbob, not Rendog,” Ren corrected peacefully.

“Right.” Grian nodded. He turned to Impulse. “Are you ready for your interview?”

“I guess?”

“Okay, liten, Impulse,” Ren said intensely. “We’ve had many applicants. Many.”

“Yeah, many,” Grian agreed. “This is like our third interview already and we’ve got a few more after you, so don’t get your hopes up.”

Impulse didn’t know exactly what it was, but something told him that he was the only applicant for the position. “Okay, sure. I mean, it’s worth a shot. I have some redstone knowledge and I can help out, so we’ll see! We’ll see!”

“Okay!” Grian placed down a chest. “This interview requires you to have no blocks on you, so empty all of your stuff in here, because we’ll provide you with everything you’re gonna need.”

Impulse obeyed, dumping all of his armor, tools and other things he had in his inventory. “Okay, sure! That’s not worrisome at all.”

He stepped back and watched as Grian and Ren rifled through his stuff.

“Okay, Grian. I’ve examined his items and it’s not looking good already,” Ren reported. Grian made small ‘mm-hmm’ noises.

“Look, there’s a redstone shulker box in there! That should count for something,” Impulse protested.

“I don’t see any flowers. Do you see any flowers, Ren?” Grian asked.

Ren shook his head. “I see no love.”

“Yeah, I don’t see any love either. This is not a loving inventory,” Grian mused. Impulse watched him as he shut the chest. “Anyway, come on in - come inside the RV.”

Grian started walking towards the closest RV but then turned around and looked at Impulse again. “This is top secret. Even if you don’t get the job, you cannot tell people what’s in here.”

“Right,” Impulse agreed, and followed Grian through into the RV.

They walked through, with Impulse studying the decorations carefully.

At the end of the RV was a room that looked quite like a bathroom. Grian turned around. “Right. This here is the entrance to our - our lair. We’ve got a gentleman’s rule that you - you don’t  _ look _ . You know, that’s the thing. I can’t  _ go _ if you’re looking.”

“I see,” Impulse answered shortly. How strange. He inferred that they were talking about standing on the toilet and then getting flushed down via a piston retracting.

“D’you mind turning around for a second?” Grian asked. Impulse made his way into the next room and faced away from Grian.

Ren reached forward and pushed a button. Impulse heard a piston retract.

“My turn!” Ren said excitedly. Impulse kept not-looking as Ren no doubt stood on the toilet as well and was flushed down too.

Then it was Impulse’s turn. He nervously stepped up onto the toilet and pushed a stone button next to him. The next thing he knew,the floor beneath him had ceased to exist and he was falling.

He landed in a water stream and was pushed along. He could see Renbob also in the stream and Grian further along.

The tunnel turned left and at the end, ended in a short drop and a waterfall that led to a giant … hippie … mushroom … cave … thing.

At first sight, the room Impulse ended up in was a mess. There were mushrooms everywhere, and everything was made of dirt, and there were campfires and banners and maps everywhere. But as he got used to it, he found he quite enjoyed the lack of order in the cave.

He attempted to dry himself off but to no avail.

“Alright.” Grian clapped his hands. “Welcome to our underground hippie shroom room.”

“Wow,” was the only thing Impulse could say.

“Alright. Do you wanna take a seat in the middle there?” Grian asked, pointed at a chair made from an acacia stair in front of a table with flowerpots on it. Next to it were two campfires sitting on top of scaffolding. He was weary of the campfires, but obliged. “Let’s begin the interview, because we’ve got quite a few questions to get through.”

Impulse tried to get a more comfortable position on the seat without attracting too much attention.

“Right. So, our first question. To ensure that you are the right man for the job, I need you to select your favorite flower,” Grian announced, placing a blue orchid, a dandelion and an oxeye daisy respectively in the flowerpots.

Impulse wanted to question their sanity, but he figured that this was a totally normal question for a hippie to ask. He squinted at the flowers. “Flowers. I thought I was here for redstone.”

Grian blinked at him. “You  _ are _ here for redstone. This is a redstone question.”

Impulse decided to pass this off as just Grian being weird.

“If he can’t tell that this is a redstone question, I’m - this interview is not going very well,” Renbob added.

Impulse raised his eyebrows and continued picking between the flowers. He walked up to the blue orchid. “I’ll pick this one. This one looks pretty good. I like this one right here.”

“Are you sure?” Renbob asked.

“Yeah, yeah!” Impulse replied. Grian nodded. Ren broke the flowerpots.

“Right. First question done,” he stated. We’ve got a few more questions for you,” he said as he opened a chest. He took out a few items which Impulse couldn’t see. “I need you to select the correct item.”

He put three item frames on top of the table. In them, he put a bone, blue dye and a piece of coal respectively.

“Correct item from what?” Impulse asked.

“Yup, the correct item. Off you go,” Grian replied brightly. Impulse still had no idea what was going on. “Come on, you should know which one is the correct item.”

“Okay, alright.” Impulse walked up to the three item frames. They seemed to contain normal items.

Ren interrupted his thinking. “Not to make you nervous, but this is very important.”

Impulse let out a nervous chuckle, then decided on the blue dye. “I went with the blue flower last time, I’ll go with the blue dye this time!”

The two hippies eyed him. “Are you sure about that?” Grian asked.

“Yup, this guy right here,” Impulse confirmed, fiddling with the blue dye and spinning it around the item frame.

“Hmm … okay, okay,” Grian mused. “Alright, alright, alright.”

He turned back to the chest and opened it. He took out a few more items, one of which Impulse saw was the mushroom.

“We’ve got a few more of these,” he explained, as he took out the bone, blue dye and coal. “So you went with the blue dye. That’s interesting. Veeeery interesting.”

He replaced the previous objects with a red mushroom, a pickle and an observer. “We’ve got three items for you. We need you to select your favorite one.”

That was really, really easy for Impulse. He walked right up to the observer. “Right, we’re speaking some redstone, finally, ‘bout my ally right here. This is my favorite redstone block right here, the observer.”

He spun the observer around in the item frame.

“Hmm,” Grian mused as Ren said, “Well, he made it spin. That’s pretty impressive.”

Impulse rolled his eyes. He knew they were playing with him now.

Grian walked up to the observer. “Wow, I didn’t know you could make redstone spin like that. See, I’m learning redstone already.” He walked back to the chest. “Alright, alright, alright.”

“ _ I  _ would have chosen the pickle though,” Ren commented as Grian collected the items and the item frames.

“Right, that is the selecting concluded,” Grian announced. “Right, are you ready for the music round - it’s really, really important.”

“I like music, yeah,” Impulse answered. “I’m ready.”

He watched as Grian walked over to a contraption with two jukeboxes with trapdoors in top of them with a loom with a button on it in between.

Grian turned to face him. “I’m going to play you three songs, okay? And I want you to tell me which one’s your favorite - A, B or C. You ready?”

“I’m ready.”

Grian hit the button and Impulse could hear a tune. It was quite pleasant and reminded him of classical music. It wasn’t exactly what Impulse thought was the hippies’ style, though.

“That was A,” Grian added. “Now for B.”

He hit the button again. This time, the tune played back to Impulse was a rock-style tune. The twp hippies immediately began shaking their heads wildly as thought they were dancing.

_ Okay … _ Impulse though, slightly taken aback.

“Or, C,” Grian continued, hitting the button once again after B had ended. The tune this time was very musical and Impulse could hear a wide variety of instruments. He knew that this one was both the hippies’ style and his favorite song of all three.

“So, which one do you pick?” Grian asked.

“Well, I quite liked the last one - C,” Impulse answered immediately. “I’m going to go with C - walk it in!”

Both of the hippies made slightly skeptical sounds, which made Impulse quite nervous.

“Okay, okay,” Grian said. He didn’t say anything about his actual answer. “Now, if you want to come over here, Impulse.”

Impulse followed Grian over to a wall of red concrete with signs on it.

“Obvious, if you’re a redstone hippie, you need to get paid,” Grian began. “You know, you get paid for your work here. So I would like you to choose how you would like to get paid.”

He moved away from the signs and Impulse read them for the first time. From left to right, the three signs read, “Friendship”, “Broship” and “More friendship”.

Impulse blinked. He hadn’t expected to be paid and certainly not in “friendship, broship or more friendship”. He supposed it was a totally hippie-like thing to do.

He decided that it would not be wise to talk about diamonds in front of the hippies. “Friendship, broship and more friendship - that sounds like a winner sign right there - Imma go with more friendship.”

“More friendship? Alright,” Grian muttered, taking out his axe and breaking the sign. “That's fine, that’s fine. I’ve got one last thing I want to show you, so if you wanna come to the back of the interview room …”

Impulse followed him to a wall on which he could see three toilet-shaped structure.s

“Now, I have actually prepared three toilets here for you, and I must admit that if you get this one wrong Impulse, you do not get the job,” Grian explained.

“That’s a lot of pressure,” Impulse stated.

“This is genuine redstone here. I know we’re not taking things too seriously, but this is genuine redstone. This is a redstone conundrum,” Grian added.

“Wow.”

“So, I need you to stand on your favourite toilet and flush yourself down your favourite one,” Grian instructed.

Impulse studied the three toilets closely. From left to right, the toilets were made of granite, quartz and spruce planks respectively. “I feel like this is a truck question here. I like quartz, but I feel like you guys probably like something that comes from the earth, more like a wood tone.”

He stood on the spruce toilet.

“So I’m going with this one. I’m going with this toilet right here,” he declared.

“Ooh.” Both Ren and Grian made such noises.

“Careful,” Ren warned. “Nuh - I mean, you do you, man!”

“You know, I’m gonna go for it, why not,” Impulse said quickly, before they could mess with his brain any longer. He slapped the button next to the toilet.

And promptly fell into a pool of lava.

He screamed as he was burnt alive. The lava ate at his skin, bit by bit dissolving him as he died of fire. His entire body was engulfed in pain as it was quickly swallowed by the hungry beast of lava.

He soon gave in to death.

He sat up at his bed at his base. He could still feel his skin burning, but it wasn’t.

Lava was a horribly painful death. It was one of the most painful ones, even though it only took a little time if one wasn’t wearing any armor.

He got out his newly respawned communicator in his pocket.

<impulseSV> THAT WASN’T FUNNY

<impulseSV> THAT REALLY, REALLY HURT

<Renthedog> you okay, bro?

He almost threw his communicator across the room. He was unbelievably angry that they did not care at all that they had just killed him.

<impulseSV> NO I AM NOT

<impulseSV> I DIED IN LAVA

<impulseSV> HOW WOULD YOU FEEL IF I PUSHED YOU INTO SOME LAVA?

Grian and Ren exchanged glances over at the hippie commune.

“Did we take it too far?” Grian asked.

Ren simply shrugged.

<Grian> sorry, bro

<Grian> you got the job though

Impulse really did throw his communicator across the room this time. It was indestructible anyway. He retrieved it and replied.

<impulseSV> How dare you just tell me I got the job? Do you think that I value the job over my own life and health?

False was very worried. She’d started worrying since the message “impulseSV tried to swim in lava” came up on the chat.

<FalseSymmetry> do you want me to come over and help you?

Impulse blinked at the new message that had showed up on his screen. False? Excuse me, False? False, as in FalseSymmetry? FALSE? False was asking if he needed her help?

He really didn’t, but if False was making a gesture of peace, he decided it wouldn’t hurt that much to reply.

<impulseSV> no thanks, false

<impulseSV> but thanks for asking

Grian almost dropped his communicator in shock. Impulse and False were interacting peacefully? Was the world ending?

<Grian> i really am sorry, impulse

<Grian> won’t happen again

Part of Impulse wanted to yell at Grian but the other part of him wanted to forgive him because he was in a forgiving mood.

But False had literally killed him … and Grian and Ren had killed him too …

He really, really didn’t know what to think.

He decided that for now, he would forgive Grian and Ren. And maybe False sometime in the future.

<impulseSV> sure

<impulseSV> don’t do it again

<Renthedog> duly noted

<Grian> come over and set up now?

<FalseSymmetry> what happened in the first place?

<Grian> we made him swim in lava

<FalseSymmetry> i see

Snorting to himself, Impulse got out his spare elytra and rockets and flew to Hippieland again. Now he realized why they had told him to put his stuff in a chest.

When he arrived, the two hippies were already there, holding flowers and other items.

“Gee, sorry, man,” Ren began. Grian elbowed him aside, smiling broadly.

“Welcome, fellow hippie brother! This is our hippie commune, and later we will give you a tour of the premises. But first, you seem to be a little … drab,” Grian announced grandly. “Ren, the flower headband, please.”

Impulse watched, confused, as Ren gently placed a headband made of flowers onto his head.

“Here are also some better shoes and a jacket,” Grian added, tossing two slippers and a sleeveless vest to Impulse.

He put them on, and he did notice that he immediately felt more hippie-like immediately.

“Sorry about the lava thing,” Grian said awkwardly.

“It’s fine, just don’t kill people unnecessarily in the future,” Impulse answered.

“Okay, let’s get to work, then,!” Ren said brightly. “We’ve got a perfect spot for you here. You can build your own RV there.”

He motioned a space where the fourth edge would be if the three RV’s already there formed a square.

“Sure,” Impulse said.

“We’ve got a few resources in the chest monsters around here. There’s also a flower farm in that RV too if you need to dye anything,” Ren said helpfully.

“Thanks,” Impulse replied. He carefully rifled through the barrels, chests and shulker boxes that dotted the hippie commune and found a suitable amount of concrete, quartz and yellow dye.

He got to work.

~~~

Around half an hour later, Grian came back from Falsewell and saw Impulse’s RV ready and beautifully made. It did hold a striking resemblance to his own RV, just yellow. Still, they were hippie brothers, so he let it slide.

Ren admired Impulse’s handiwork. The redstoner could definitely make a good hippie one day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this chapter! This took a lot of time, because I copied word-for-word (or as much as I could while still fitting this plot) what they said in the video. Also I guess like, if they’re actually experiencing the pain of dying in lava, they’ll have a much angrier reaction than if they’re just playing Minecraft. I’m speaking for myself here, but if my friends were to dunk me into lava unnecessarily in real life then I would be very angry (even if I did respawn after).
> 
> I just wanted to ask a question: which side of the great communicator war (False vs Impulse) are you on? You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but this has actually become part of the plot and might affect the way things turn out if I continue this series. This choice can be biased towards who you watch more or who you like in general.
> 
> Also thank you so much for over 30 kudos and over 500 hits! It means a lot to a small writer like me!
> 
> I also just realized that I should've put another chapter yesterday, but I didn't.
> 
> Also also, I think I'm going to delete the "Scar gets anxiety" tag because I've decided to change that. Because a) he still needs to function in future works, b) if he does get anxiety and I need him to function, that means therapy and I'm not bothered to write that and c) I haven't really been following the "Scar gets anxiety" storyline.


	10. And so they formed the HIB

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Hermits in Black are formed, countdowns are started and Scar gets increasingly stressed.

Scar was close to having a meltdown.

Ever since he’d heard that the hippies had adopted Impulse into their ranks, he’d become increasingly more paranoid. Impulse could do redstone just as well as Doc, and now they were losing their upper hand.

Doc didn’t make a big deal out of it, but Scar knew that he was under stress too. And if Doc, the unshakable and stubborn trident king, and now mentally unstable alien hunter, was worried, then Scar didn’t know what to do.

He spent most of his time with all of the cats that he had tamed. They helped calm him down slightly.

But every day he went to work at Area 77, and every day he became more paranoid.

Every day the hippies seemed to grow more powerful. Impulse was no doubt getting up to some redstone shenanigans, Grian was building a giant redstone-powered farm inside a barn, and Ren - well, Ren was just being Ren.

Meanwhile, he spent his days having panic attacks and Doc was becoming even more insane.

The thing was, he didn’t know that when the hippies inevitably took action, if Doc would take it too far. He also didn’t know if Doc took it too far, if he would be spared or punished. He also didn’t know if Doc would still find a way to delete himself if Scar simply renounced his position in Area 77.

At least he still had the few friends he had. Stress and False and sometimes Ren would help him brainstorm ways to stop all of this mess. False was in a much worse mood because Impulse was now a hippie and she saw him on a daily basis but she didn’t stop helping Scar. Stress was still kind and didn’t mind Scar’s questionable life choices. And Ren was pretty great, if you were talking about Rendog and not Renbob.

They discreetly met in different locations in Falsewell as frequently as possible without attracting attention. The staggered meeting times helped slightly to avoid suspicion. Scar knew that most, if not all, of the hermits would side with him if they knew what he was doing now, but that might lead to Doc hearing about it and they could also react extremely negatively.

So Scar was in a huge dilemma.

He was currently sitting in a helicopter where he could see what was going on inside the hippie commune. Doc had built it and now Scar sat in it to spy on the hippies and make himself even more nervous.

He froze when someone landed beside him. Looking up, it was Doc. Who else could it be?

“We need to counteract the hippies. Area 77 is not enough,” Doc spat. The cyborg was dressed in a suit, very different from his usual attire of a torn lab coat and torn pants. Scar wondered why he was in such a foul mood. “I have come up with an idea - we will form the HIB - the Hermits in Black - to counteract the hippies.”

“Does that mean that Area 77 is over?” Scar asked hopefully.

“No, you idiot,” Doc snapped. “Area 77 is just getting started.”

Scar didn’t see the point of arguing with Doc and risking Doc feeling the need to delete himself permanently. So he simply nodded.

“Follow me,” Doc ordered. He jumped off of the helicopter and took flight. Scar followed him.

They flew to the entrance of the first hangar, where Doc went inside and so did Scar.

“The hippies are getting too powerful,” Doc hissed. “We’re going to be the HIB - and that means we need to look the part.”

He handed Scar a three piece suit, similar to the one he had on.

“What?” Scar asked.

“Wear the suit,” Doc suggested, but it seemed more like an order.

“You want me to … wear a suit,” Scar confirmed.

“Yes!” Doc said impatiently.

“But it’s so hard to move in suits!” Scar complained. It was true. When looking for practical clothing, suits were probably not the best way to go.

“Maybe you’ve forgotten what I threatened to do if you didn’t stop meddling in my business,” Doc snarled, leaning down until his face right in front of Scar’s.

“But this time, I am part of your business,” Scar wanted to say. But he didn’t, because he didn’t know what Doc would do. “Fine.”

“There’s a small room down the end of the hall,” Doc directed. “You can change there.”

“I know, I built it,” Scar wanted to say, but he didn’t. Instead, he dutifully changed into the three-piece suit. He walked out of the room again, holding his Captain Angry Eyes uniform.

“You can put that in one of the barrels,” Doc instructed. Scar did so.

“You know, now that both of us are wearing suits, we look like Mumbo,” he joked, trying to lighten the mood.

Doc glared at him. “You disrespect the HIB.”

“Okay, okay.” Scar put his hands up non-threateningly. “My bad.”

“Here’s a diagram I made of how we’re going to build the HIB headquarters,” Doc announced, taking out a large sheet of paper with a drawing of a space-age structure that Scar actually liked the look of. “We can build it on the large patch of grass facing the hippies. Let that scum know what they’re going up against.”

Scar looked closely at the drawing. If he could describe it, he would say that it was a tower with a large circle on top of it and four tentacle-like things coming off of it and onto the ground. The sketch also contained a concept for a garden.

He read the notes. They said that the structure would use lots of end rods, glass, quartz, spruce planks, concrete and terracotta. The garden was noted to be made out of spruce leaves, lime terracotta and green terracotta.

“We can work with this,” he agreed.

They flew out onto the lawn. Scar already had some quartz, concrete and terracotta on him, and Doc said that he had some dyes on him.

Between the two of them, it didn’t take long to make the structure especially considering that it was already planned out. Sometimes Scar came up with improvements which Doc sometimes agreed with and sometimes didn’t - but at least he could take suggestions.

The building took exactly forty-seven minutes by Scar’s watch. When he stepped back to look at it, he had to agree that it was pretty good. Not exactly his style, but still pretty good.

“This will be the HIB headquarters,” Doc announced. “Wait a second.”

Scar watched from the sidelines as Doc took some more quartz and made the letters “HIB” on top of the grey platform.

“Perfect,” he declared.

Scar agreed mostly. The building was very pretty.

Doc seemed satisfied for now, so Scar left the area. He went back to the hangar where the Captain Angry Eyes uniform was and changed back.

It felt good to be Angry Eyes again - not as good as if he were to return to being Scar, but still better than being part of the HIB.

He looked down at his blue uniform. Captain Angry Eyes - that was the title he had chosen to give his character for Area 77. He decided that it would be a good idea to do something nice for Angry Eyes/himself. He was going to build him a house.

This idea had come to him before, and he had picked out the space on top of the tunnel that led to the rest of Area 77 in front of the main entrance. He’d suddenly had a spark of inspiration to start building.

He gathered the materials he’d planned to use - quartz, concrete and terracotta, as well as some materials he hadn’t planned on using but wanted to now. The palette was really similar to that of the HIB headquarters and he chose to ignore that fact.

He began placing block by block, first the main structure of the build and then the little details. He tried to fit in with the aesthetic of Area 77 - which meant no terraforming.

This was therapy for Scar. He loved building and he hadn’t had the chance to really do much recently. Now he just focused on the placing of the blocks and ignored the thoughts that were trying to invade his head.

_ Why is Doc acting so strange? I’ve been so worried about myself that I haven’t even begun worrying about Doc. Why is he acting so strange? I need to save him. But how? I know that the real Doc wouldn’t do this. There’s something obviously wrong with him. _

He shook his head, trying to stamp out the thoughts. He hummed a tune that he particularly - it was called Howling, but he hummed it when he built things and he called it Super-fast Build Mode.

It didn’t help.

After half an hour of him fighting with himself, he stepped back to look at what he had created.

It was decent. It completely fit with the aesthetic of both Captain Angry Eyes and Area 77 itself. It was a generic space-age building and Scar was pleased.

The roof of the house looked a bit bland, though.

_ Wait, I can make this better _ , Scar thought, climbing up to the top. A few minutes later, a TIE fighter was sitting on a launchpad on the roof.  _ Now that’s perfection _ .

He had a great view of the house from a particular tree in the rapidly expanding forest in Area 77. He sat on one of the highest branches, squinting at his build.

He opened his communicator and saw the recent messages.

<FalseSymmetry> yo impulse

<impulseSV> what

<FalseSymmetry> wanna hear a joke

<impulseSV> not particularly

<impulseSV> but go on

<FalseSymmetry> what’s an even bigger joke than area 77

<GoodTimeWithScar> oi!

<impulseSV> no idea

<FalseSymmetry> YOU!

<impulseSV> damn should’ve seen that coming

<FalseSymmetry> ^_^

He wanted to yell at False that Area 77 wasn’t a joke, but he didn’t, because it slightly was. But he couldn’t say that either because Doc could see it and Scar was not exempt from the effects of Doc’s rage like False was.

The crunch of powder under feet alerted Scar that there were actual other people in existence. He scanned the area and found that Doc was standing on the grey concrete powder road and looking up at the building.

Scar discreetly slipped onto a lower branch to hide himself better because he didn’t know if Doc had seen him yet.

The cyborg had changed back into his normal clothes and was simply  _ standing there _ . And looking at Captain Angry Eye’s house. Scar wasn’t sure which way to take this so he didn’t take it any way.

After a few minutes, Doc was still standing there and Scar was getting bored and his muscles were cramping. So he jumped off of the tree and glided a safe distance away to Falsewell.

~~~

Later that day, after Scar had hung out with False and Ren in Falsewell enough, Scar returned to Area 77.

He landed on the surveillance helicopter again, and his eyes beheld a terrible sight.

He saw redstone contraption displaying the number 10. It was counting down to something terrible, he knew it.

He saw a giant stage-like structure made of blue wool and lots of peace banners.

But most frighteningly of all, he saw a giant RV in a silo. Ready to take off at any moment and he knew that it meant bad news for him.

He sank to the floor. He didn’t know what to be more frightened of. Certainly not the stage - it was just surprising. Somehow Re had built it before he had met up with Scar and False in Falsewell at noon. But the countdown clock and the giant RV? If that wasn’t a declaration of war, Scar didn’t know what was.

He clutched at the walls of the helicopter, trying to straighten himself. “Okay, okay,” he whispered. “We can do this. We’re actually friends. They won’t hold anything against you.”

He realized that he was already assuming that the hippies had already overpowered them. He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the intrusive thoughts.

“Stop it, Scar! You can do this! If you beat them, good for you! If they beat you, they can help you save Doc!” he told himself. “Come on, Scar!”

He shakily stood up. He didn’t want to think about it right now so he didn’t. Instead, he flew off back to the main island (and Concorp) where the hippies and Doc _ were not _ and other nice people  _ were _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 10 for you guys! Yay!
> 
> Also, my current upload schedule is Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday mornings, in Australia time. I predict I'll be able to finish this work before the end of next week because I'm currently writing Chapter 14 and I can get about half a chapter done each school day.


	11. And so Grian finds out some things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Scar has a mental battle with himself, False and Keralis are very good spies and Grian finds out what has happened.

After a rare and enjoyable late-afternoon visit to the main island, Scar was feeling in the mood to stress about the happenings a bit more.

It was the next day, and the countdown clock proudly displayed a nine. Scar studied the clock. It was definitely made by Impulse - the question was, had Grian told Impulse to make anything else with redstone? Scar definitely couldn’t withhold a TNT attack if that was the case.

_ Who am I kidding? They’re hippies, of course they wouldn’t use TNT dupers. _ Scar chuckled to himself.

His communicator beeped.

<Docm77> yo scar, i need you to build a new hangar

<FalseSymmetry> oh rly

<FalseSymmetry> got any other clues that make it even easier for the rest of the world ot figure what's going on inside of those walls?

<Grian> please continue, doc

<Grian> i would love to know all your secrets

<Docm77> you free, scar?

<GoodTimeWithScar> yeah sure, why not

<Grian> little puppy following its master?

<FalseSymmetry> leave scar alone!

<Renthedog> not cool, man

<Renthedog> you’re a hippie

<Grian> and that means i have to be a doormat

<Renthedog> no it doesn’t

Scar sighed and closed his eyes. He knew that Ren wanted to say that it wasn’t Scar’s fault, but that could make Doc angry and maybe a bit suspicious.

He typed one last message in his communicator and hit send.

<GoodTimeWithScar> meet inside the hib hq?

<Docm77> sure

He flew down from the surveillance helicopter and made a short flight to the HIB headquarters. Inside the main entrance was a large room where Doc was busy pacing.

“There you are,” he said to Scar when he arrived. “We need to secure the time machine in a better location.”

So Doc  _ was _ worried about the hippies’ growing power. “Why?”

“I suspect someone knows where the time machine is, and the hippies can easily get it,” Doc explained. “That’s why we need to build another hangar.”

“Another hangar?” Scar was surprised, but really he should be. “But dude - we’ve already got like twenty hangars already.”

“Thirty-seven, actually,” Doc corrected. “But this is for the greater good, bro.”

_ I don’t see how it’s for the greater good - everybody’s on  _ their _ side _ , Scar wanted to say.  _ And don’t call me “bro”. I am not your “bro”. _

He didn’t say that out loud. Instead he smiled sadly and said. “I guess. Did you have a location planned?”

“I was thinking -” Doc began, and looked around suspiciously. He stuck his head outside and growled.

Scar followed him. Crouched in one of the bushes was none other than Cubfan, Scar’s partner in moneymaking and fellow Convex.

“Get out!” Doc barked. He drew his sword and Cub immediately bolted.

“Calm down, dude!” he shouted once he was a safe distance away.

Scar wanted to laugh at Cub’s actions but he didn’t dare to because Doc was visibly angry.

“Did you tell him to spy on us?” Doc demanded, rounding on Scar.

“No, I didn’t!” Scar replied. He actually hadn’t, but he had seen Cub yesterday and he could see why Doc thought that he did.

Doc scrutinized him but seemed to take his word for it. “Right. I don’t sense any other people around here.” His voice dropped. “I was thinking that you could build it under the first hangar.”

“Why? That doesn’t seem like a particularly special hiding place,” Scar whispered back.

“What ideas do you have?” Doc hissed.

“I don’t know, in some obscure location? Keep it in the same hiding spot?  _ Anywhere that isn’t in the place that they want to overpower and discover all the secrets of? _ ”

Doc seemed to process his words, then turned to face him. “It would be a shame if  _ somebody _ was the cause of my self-deletion.

Scar clenched his fists and opened his mouth to yell, but common sense got the better of him. It wouldn’t be a good idea if Doc deleted himself before Scar could save him.

_ But it isn’t fair! _ he screamed in his head. With his mouth, he said, “It  _ would _ be a shame. Which means that I  _ will _ build a bunker  _ directly underneath _ the first one.”

“Excellent,” Doc grinned. “Go start planning it now.”

Scar spammed rockets everywhere as he took flight. He didn’t know why he felt like crying, so he tried to hold it all in. A few tears leaked out here and there, but he firmly told his tear ducts to stop making him cry.

Feeling quite hopeless and very salty, he decided to purposefully make the entrance to the bunker obvious but it wouldn’t be obvious to others that he had purposefully made it obvious.

He decided to make a central fountain-like structure in the middle of the main chamber and a hole in the middle would lead to the underground hangar.

Did it even count as a hangar if it was underground?

He made a large, large hole down to Y12, which coincidentally was near the best diamond level. At the bottom, he cleared out a long corridor with containment chambers on the sides and covered everything with white and gray concrete. It was a pretty generic Area 77 building.

_ Area 77 _ . He scoffed at the name. How had he not questioned it at the beginning? It was all about Doc. He was just Doc’s puppet in the grand scheme. Everybody now knew him as easily manipulatable and evil but too gullible to do anything otherwise.

He clutched his head in his hands. Why, why, why did he ever get involved in any of this? He remembered the morning when Doc had been found unconscious. That seemed like so long ago. He hadn’t questioned Doc’s behaviour much then and he realized how STUPID he had been.

He felt an immeasurable amount of venom at not only Doc, but his clueless self. But also Doc, because DOC was the one who started everything who had started Area 77 who had made his life into a living nightmare -

_ CALM DOWN! _ he yelled at himself.  _ It isn’t Doc’s fault, but it is! It is Doc’s fault because why would he be acting so weirdly all of a sudden? But it is! But it isn’t! Shut up, Scar! Your mind-control theory is JUST A THEORY! A FALSE THEORY BECAUSE DOC IS JUST EVIL! _

He sank to the floor, clutching his head.  _ Deep breaths, just deep breaths. _

His mind gradually cleared.

_ Okay, what do you know about Doc? _ he asked himself.

_ Normal Doc isn’t Current Doc. Current Doc is not Normal Doc. But I don’t know why he isn’t Normal Doc anymore. _

_ Good, good _ , he told himself.  _ Why do you think he isn’t Normal Doc anymore? _

_ Because mind-control,  _ said his brain immediately.  _ But that’s not likely. I DON’T KNOW. _

_ There’s a reason for everything, _ said the sensible voice patiently.

_ Because he’s a sick bastard who enjoys torturing his friends. I don’t know why X let him stay. I thought X had good judgement. _

_ No, that’s not it, _ the sensible voice stated.

_ Then what IS IT? _ he asked, frustrated. No answer came. He envisioned throwing the voice against a wall. There was no response, and he figured he’d killed it.

He forcefully pushed aside all of the intrusive thoughts and stood up. Now was not the time to question his existence but to do some building.

He decided to add some hidden lighting under carpets and some orange concrete accents to make the place a bit more colourful - his own declaration of war against Doc.

A few more changes later, he decided that it was pretty good. He also wanted to actually do something so that he wouldn’t be thinking annoying thoughts.

Right at that moment, his communicator buzzed.

It was Doc, but it wasn’t on the main chat. It was on a seperate chat, because Doc had finally started to use whisper.

<Docm77> you done

<GoodTimeWithScar> yeah?

<Docm77> you gotta relocate the actual time machine, bro

<GoodTimeWithScar> sure

<GoodTimeWithScar> i’ll do that now

Another job for him. He sighed.

He had to fly all the way over to the main island, disassemble the time machine, and set it up in one of the containment chambers over here again?

Well, he had to do it either way so it was better to just get it over with.

He hadn’t made an exit so he just flew upwards through the hole in the structure he didn’t know what to name.

He flew over Falsewell to get to the Hermitville portal. It was looking no different from the last time he had been there.

He saw False and Keralis walking in the streets, talking. He shouted and they looked up and waved.

_ At least there are some people who like me _ .

~~~

“I wonder where he’s going?” False said out loud.

“Probably some Area 77 stuff,” Keralis suggested.

“Really? Then we need to watch him,” False blurted, before realizing her mistake.

“What do you mean?” Keralis asked.

“Well … uhh.” False wondered whether Keralis could be trusted, but realized that he didn’t really talk to anyone except for the newly reinstated Bdubs. “Scar is my friend and we need to help him. Also I’m worried about him.”

That was an altered version of the truth. He didn’t need to know about Scar stealing documents for here or their secret society. She was also worried about potential bugs spying on them.

“That’s a great idea,” Keralis enthused.

“Really.” False hadn’t known that spying on other people was Keralis’s idea of fun. Apparently it was.

“Not really.” Keralis pulled a face. “But it’s boring here, and spying on other people isn’t.”

“That is a great reason.” False chuckled.

They took to the sky, a safe distance away from Scar.

~~~

Scar concentrated on nothing but flying ahead in the nether tunnel. He thought he’d heard someone following him, but he assumed it was just his mind playing tricks on him.

He knew Grian would be in Hippieland, so simply sneaking into his base was the best way to go this time. He entered Grian’s portal and into Grian’s giant wedding cake tower.

There was a giant chest monster in the room, and Scar observed it quietly. Apparently he wasn’t the only one plagued with them.

He noticed a drone buzzing from a dark spot.

“I know you’re there, Doc!” he yelled. “And I  _ am  _ doing my job!”

~~~

“He thinks that we’re Doc,” False told Keralis. “And he says he’s doing his job.”

She opened her eyes again.

“What is he doing?” Keralis asked.

“Can’t tell,” False replied, closing her eyes again. She mentally inhabited her drone, TrueSymmetry, again, and watched from True’s eyes. “He’s flying out of the base.”

“Follow him!” Keralis urged. False reached out her hands and steered True to follow Scar.

“He’s swimming down into the sea outside Grian’s base,” she reported. “He’s heading down to the pineapple thing.”

“The Spongebob house,” Keralis corrected. False opened her eyes to look at him. “What?”

“Nothing,” she shot back, closing her eyes again. “Okay, so he’s swimming down into the house and then - wow.”

“What?” Keralis demanded. She waved her arm in his direction and made contact with his hair.

“Shush,” she scolded. “Okay, there’s a basement to the house, and … oh.”

“WHAT?” Keralis hissed.

“The time machine in Grian’s backyard,” False answered, shocked. “They hid it in the basement - right under Grian’s nose.”

“What time machine?” Keralis asked. False remembered that he hadn’t been there when the time machine was stolen.

“I’ll explain later,” she said dismissively. “It’s very important and it’s why Grian doesn’t like them. Anyway - oh no, oh no, oh no.”

~~~

Scar watched the drone from the corner of his eye as he took down the time machine. It was a normal spectator drone, owned by one of the hermits. He suspected it was Doc due to the lack of paint on it. Most hermits chose to paint their drones.

Wait, there was light blue paint, just very little of it because most of it had chipped off. That could still mean a lot of hermits.

“Whoever you are, go away!” he barked.

He continued disassembling the time machine. He put the parts in a shulker box that he put in his ender chest.

Before he left, he put a few taunting signs and a few magma blocks were the time machine used to stand.

“The power of time travel is too powerful for anyone to have.”

“Hermits in Black investigation.”

Hermits in Black. He wanted to laugh at the absolutely ludicrous name.

Before the drone could take anything in, he had shot out of the building and away,to the shopping district, through the iTrade portal, and up into the circular tunnel-meeting chamber. He knew that although the drone would go through walls, it wasn’t fast enough to follow him because he had an elytra and it didn’t.

~~~

“Holy macaroni!” False exclaimed.

“What?”

Both of them turned around as the sound of firework rockets reached their ears. All they could see was Scar flying up into the nether tunnels. He hadn’t seemed to notice them.

“Scar just bolted after taking it down. That was really fast,” False observed. “And he left two signs that read “the power of time travel is too powerful for anyone to have” and “Hermits in Black investigation”.”

“We’ve got to follow him,” Keralis exclaimed.

Without replying, False had shot up into the sky and into the large area where the four tunnels met. Scar was frozen in place on the platform made of black concrete.

She pretended to scan around. “I can’t see him anywhere. I don’t think he’s going to Area 77, either. Why would he hide in a place where everybody will look?”

Keralis sighed from the ground. “Well, he’s gotta be there somewhere. I’m coming up.”

False made a spur-of-the-moment decision and threw a bunch of her possessions into the air “accidentally”. She made it seem like she had accidentally fallen, and she made it seem like she had tripped, fell down and went into flight mode at the last second

What she had actually done was throw a splash potion of invisibility at Scar. She trusted that he would get the hint and take off his armor so that he could become invisible until it was safe to take flight again.

She landed onto the floor, all of her items falling with her. She picked them up.

“Are you okay, False?” Keralis asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” False replied. She needed to help Scar because it wasn’t Scar’s fault that he was stealing the time machine. It was Doc’s. But Keralis didn’t need to know that.

“Let’s maybe rest a bit,” Keralis suggested. False nodded, feigning weakness.

She sat up on the floor, pretending to recover a little bit of her strength.

~~~

Scar didn’t know what False was trying, but he appreciated her help.

He’d inferred that False was the owner of the drone, and Keralis was just helping her. Of course - one of False’s signature colours was light blue and False wasn’t exactly known for keeping her possessions in good shape.

He watched curiously as False and Keralis sat down together on the floor. She seemed to be covering for him - because there was no way she could just “accidentally” lie to Keralis and “accidentally” throw a splash potion of invisibility at him.

He looked down at them again, and then decided to start the walk to Hermitville again. It was better than just waiting there and doing nothing.

“I think we can go to the shopping district - there you can sit down and someone can take a look at you,” he heard Keralis suggest before he had the chance to walk away.

“That’s a great idea,” False enthused. 

Scar peered over the edge again and saw then disappearing through the iTrade portal again. That was his sign to leave, wasn’t it? So he put on his elytra again and started flying down the tunnel. Even if they did come back, his elytra was close to the colour of the blue walls anyway so it would be hard to see him.

He arrived in Hermitville and flew to Area 77. He quickly rebuilt the time machine in one of the containment chambers. He got out his communicator

<GoodTimeWithScar> secured and ready

<Renthedog> wHAt

<Docm77> noyb

<Docm77> thanks, scar

Scar felt like collapsing because of all the work he had done, but he kept his legs from bending and instead managed to make his way to Captain Angry Eye’s house.

~~~

Grian was strolling through the streets of Falsewell when he heard talking from the diner.

He poked his head in, and saw False and Keralis sitting at a table, talking. False was already facing him and Keralis turned to him when he opened the door.

“Hey, G!” False greeted.

“Hi, Grian.” Keralis waved.

“Hey, guys,” he replied. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

“Not at all!” Keralis patted the spot next to him. Grian sat down. “False here just fell from a great height and she needs to rest.”

“I’ve told you for the last time, that was HOURS ago and I already regenerated all my health!” False argued. “What we SHOULD be talking about is what Scar is doing!”

“What?” Grian demanded. “I mean, what is Scar doing?”

“He took down your time machine and put it somewhere else,” Keralis answered.

Grian sprung up. “What? Where is it?”

“We don’t know,” False sighed.

Right. Of course they didn’t know. Doc and Scar were smart. He could work with that. “Where was it?”

“Spongebob,” Keralis answered.

“What?” Spongebob? They had to be making this up. But then it dawned on him. He remembered the pineapple under the sea that Scar had built next to his conduit. It had been there. “Shoot.”

“Don’t blame yourself. There was no way you could’ve thought about looking there even when it was there,” False told him.

He knew that. “I need to go see it.”

“We’ve got footage from True,” False offered.

“True?” he asked, confused. He didn’t know that there was a hermit called True.

“My drone, TrueSymmetry,” False corrected.

“Ah,” Grian answered. “I’m going anyway.”

“Remember that your safety is not guaranteed!” False called as he got up to leave. “Doc is possibly very angry and stressed and might snap!”

“Got it,” he replied, exiting the diner and taking flight.

~~~

Scar woke up, rubbing his eyes. Woah, where was he?

Then he remembered coming upstairs, crashing onto the bed and falling into a dead sleep.

Everything hurt, and he still didn’t feel less tired.

He checked his communicator. Doc had messaged him on the private chat again.

<Docm77> thank you

<Docm77> it looks great

<Docm77> i secured the villager in another cell and made a tnt-powered exit that you should not use

<GoodTimeWithScar> sure

He didn’t mind that Doc was telling him to stay away from the TNT exit. It wasn’t like he wanted to use it anyway - he had died to TNT more times than he cared to admit.

He also had completely forgotten about Villager Grian. He didn’t know where Doc had put him in Area 77 before but now it was in the underground hangar. He didn’t exactly agree with the imprisonment, but Villager Grian technically had been imprisoned by Grian and Doc so it didn’t matter.

~~~

Grian stood stock still.

“The power of time travel is too powerful for anyone to have.”

“Hermits in Black investigation.”

He read the signs again and again, refusing to believe it. It had been under his nose all this time? How had he been so stupid?

His hands clenched into fists and he had to physically stop himself from punching the wall.

_ Remember what False said. It’s not your fault. You couldn’t have guessed _ .

He had to give it to them this time. There was no way he could have thought to look here.

_ Dammit! Where is it now? _

_ I need to get it back. They don’t know what it can do. They might mess with it and then things will go terribly. I need to stop them. It’s for their own good. _

Ironically, it was true that the power of time travel was too powerful for anyone to have - especially everyone except for Grian. He knew what it did and how to use it safely, but not anyone else.

_ And it’ll teach them to steal from me. I  _ will _ teach them not to mess with me. _

_ Either the hard way or the way that ends in everyone dying. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay, chapter 11! So drones represent spectator accounts in this universe because they can't exactly get another "account" because they themselves aren't "accounts" in the first place. They inhabit the drones by closing their eyes and concentrating and can direct the drone which way to go. And yes, I did name False's drone True because that is the actual name of her spectator account.


	12. And so the hippie experiment begins, with them all scattered to the winds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Grian does an angry and Scar does a terrible.

He watched as the clock hit 0.

From the other side of the wall, the hippies cheered. Ren set some fireworks and Impulse turned the clock off.

He watched as the hippies dispersed. He watched as Grian went over to the giant RV in the silo. He watched as Renbob went into his RV. He watched as Impulse fiddled with his countdown clock.

Scar watched a lot of things, but was too scared to do anything about them.

He watched as Grian got to work taking down the RV. He watched as the hippie built it up in the sky with a cloud of smoke made of glass and glass panes propelling it upwards.

He watched as Impulse put the clock to three again.

He didn’t watch Ren because Ren was nowhere to be seen.

The giant RV was beautiful. He’d never seen Grian do the glass smoke effect before but he did it really well.

The RV was now high in the sky, and it seemed to radiate power and bad news for him and Doc. And the countdown clock had started again - which meant there was something else massive it was counting down towards.

Grian looked at the helicopter in the sky. Scar was on it, and he gleefully raised a fist.

“You can’t hide, Scar!” he yelled. “I’m taking back what’s mine!”

He was standing on the front of the RV that was technically the roof, and he stamped down on it, causing an almighty rattle. His vantage point was above the helicopter, and he used this to stare at Scar scarily.

Scar jerked back from the noise. He saw Grian smile widely.

“You scared?” he shouted. “You should be, because when I’m done with you, you will be known as BadTimesWithScar!”

Scar shuffled backwards even more. He watched as Impulse came to land beside Grian and take him away.

He flew away as well, back to the main part of Area 77.

As he flew down to the runway, he felt his communicator buzz. He landed and took it out of his pocket.

<Grian> sorry bro

<Grian> don’t know what came over me

<Grian> but you can just hand over the time machine and everything can be over

He sighed. He wanted desperately to do just that, but he feared for Doc. He wanted to be friends with Grian again, but he couldn’t, not with Doc on his tail.

<GoodTimeWithScar> no

<GoodTimeWithScar> i’m sorry

He was sorry, he was sorry that he couldn’t hand it over, he was sorry that he couldn’t do anything, he was sorry that he wasn’t brave enough to do anything, he was sorry that he had gotten them into this mess in the first place.

Now was not the time to sulk around. Now was the time to take action. He needed to defend Area 77 and to do that, he needed to be Captain Angry Eyes. Not just wear the costume, but  _ be _ him.

He stalked around the area, killing stray mobs and noting down weak areas. He stationed cats at every entrance and dogs where enemies could get in. He told Doc where the weak spots were and what places needed to be trapped.

The cyborg, he noticed, hadn’t been slacking either. He’d been working day and night recently on some plan that he wouldn’t tell Scar about but Scar trusted that Doc was even more dedicated to this project than he was. He had taken to writing even more documents and building TNT cannons where none were necessary.

Scar spent the day heightening the security measures in Area 77. At least to Doc, he was useful in a way.

It wasn’t until he was sitting on his bed in Captain Angry Eyes’s house that he realized.

_ I just helped Doc. Why? False fell from the sky for me. She’s my friend, even when the others don’t like me. Stress and Ren also helped me. And I went ahead and helped Doc. _

_ Why am I so hopeless? _

He buried his face in his hands and made a half grunting, half whining sound that sounded distantly like an annoying bird of prey.

He needed to do something about it. He got out his communicator and privately messaged Ren.

<GoodTimeWithScar> ren?

<GoodTimeWithScar> you there?

<Renthedog> yeah?

<GoodTimeWithScar> meet up in falsewell?

<Renthedog> where in falsewell?

<GoodTimeWithScar> the tower on the other side of the crop circles?

<Renthedog> brt

Scar needed to be there too, so he quickly dragged himself up and flew over there. He opted to fly to the door and go in that way, since he wanted to meet at the bottom of the tower since the top wasn’t very secure.

Ren arrived soon, at the top. He climbed all the way down, and gave Scar a smile when he arrived.

“I’ve done a terrible,” Scar blurted.

“Uh-huh,” Ren nodded. “And what “terrible” did you do?”

“I helped Doc on my own - I helped Doc without him asking me to,” he confessed.

“Oh dear,” Ren replied.

“So I’m going to tell you all of the traps we laid so when you guys come charging in you can avoid them,” Scar added.

“That is very suspicious,” Ren remarked. “How do I know that you’re not secretly on Doc’s side and you’re just tricking me?”

“Because … well, because we’ve been working together for a bit now and I haven’t done anything bad except for this, so you’ve got to trust me,” Scar told him.

“Fair enough,” Ren conceded. “Tell me everything.”

Scar spent the next hour drawing out a map of Area 77 and telling Ren where all the traps were. If this all worked out, it would be the end of Area 77 and he didn’t exactly know what to do next, but this seemed like the right thing to do.

“That’s a lot of traps,” Ren said. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

Scar hesitated. He didn’t know whether or not to tell Ren where the time machine was.

“You hesitated,” Ren pointed out.

“Fine, fine,” Scar threw his hands up. “Under the first hangar that we built is another one, where there are containment cells. I already told you not to tell anyone about this, but you must especially make sure that Grian and Impulse must not know that you’re directing them there.”

“Sure,” Ren answered, not questioning Scar. “I think the tunnel Grian’s building is going somewhere in that direction. I’ll point him in that way a bit more.”

“Thanks, Ren,” Scar said.

“No problem, man.” Ren clapped him on the back. “Stop being so worried. And don’t worry about Grian - he’s just really mad at you and seeking vengeance.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” Scar sighed.

“Good,” Ren said brightly, and Scar doubted that he had actually heard what Scar had said. “I need to go back - some hippie stuff needs to be done.”

“See you.” Scar waved and Ren climbed up the stairs to fly back to Hippieland. After a while, he exited the tower too and headed back to Area 77.

Doc was in his iron farm office again. Scar popped by.

“Hey Doc, how are you doing?” he asked.

Doc glanced at him. “Why are you here again? You were just here a few hours ago.”

“Just wanted to say hi,” Scar said casually.

Doc narrowed his eyes. “Don’t think you can go around betraying me. Remember what I said?”

“Of course,” Scar replied. “Because I didn’t.”

He kept a straight face and a calm mask, but inside he was shaking. Did Doc know that he had told Ren everything? Surely not - if he did, he would already have deleted himself.

“Right,” Doc said. “Behave yourself and don’t forget who’s boss.”

_ I won’t _ , Scar thought, casting an angry look at Doc’s back. He exited the hangar and went back to the surveillance helicopter.

He sat on the side of the helicopter, feeling very bored. He couldn’t safely bring Jellie to it and he was so bored.

He got out an old book and quill that he had on him at that moment and started writing. He’d been told that writing was good therapy and he needed therapy urgently.

_ Today, I went around Area 77 and heightened the security measures. _

Just in case Doc read this, he couldn’t put down that he told Ren what to do, so he didn’t. Instead, he observed what the hippies were doing over at Hippieland.

_ Renbob is nowhere to be seen. Is he hiding something, or just lazy? It might be to do with the underground cave I heard about. What could be under there? _

_ Impulse is working on his clock again. Is it broken, or is he bluffing to distract me? That would be very clever because I am very distracted, but not very hippie-like. From here it looks like the redstone has broken and he is simply placing it back to make it what it used to be. Some of the trapdoors are open for no reason. _

_ Impulse doesn’t seem to be very anxious or worried. He seems to enjoy just doing redstone, even if it’s just fixing broken parts. That seems to be the normal mindset of every redstoner. _

_ Grian is sitting inside of the giant RV, which is actually the back of the RV if the RV was the right way up. He is sitting cross legged and seems to be on edge. He is fiddling with some golden carrots in his left hand while his right hand holds his communicator. I cannot see his exact facial expression but he seems to be slightly worried, which is odd considering that he is a hippie. _

_ He seems to be either watching a video or reading a document on his communicator. I cannot see or hear it, but he is very focused on it. Is he plotting something, or is it purely recreational? I suspect it is the former. _

_ Nothing too strange seems to be happening. I can’t tell what exactly they are doing, but I suspect that they are doing something they don’t want us to know. _

He continued doing it for around ten more minutes. He finished by writing the date and closed the book. He reached to put the book back into his inventory, but felt another person sitting beside him.

He jumped around a mile into the air when he realized it was Doc. Had he just been sitting there, watching him? That was really creepy, and didn’t say anything good about Scar’s observational skills.

“I just arrived,” Doc said before Scar could say anything. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing in particular. Just watching the hippies,” Scar replied. “Why?”

He hoped that Doc hadn’t noticed or hadn’t thought anything of the book clutched in his hands. The universe didn’t seem to feel like being nice to him as Doc looked directly at the book and asked, “What’s that?”

He forced a smile onto his face. “Nothing much. Just a book of notes I keep with me.”

Doc scrutinized him. “Can I see?”

“Err, this is kind of a private notebook,” Scar began to protest, before Doc yanked the book out of his hands and flipped through.

Scar knew that the front of the book wouldn’t interest him because it was mostly a documented list of Concorp’s shenanigans. Doc flipped through pages upon pages of this until he got to the most recently inked pages. 

“You … recorded everything the hippies have been doing?” Doc asked him.

Damn it, why was he such an idiot? Lying wouldn’t be a good idea now. “Yes?”

“This is excellent!” Doc congratulated him. “I’ll keep this for some further examination.”

Scar opened his mouth to protest, but Doc started speaking again before he had the chance to.

“I’m really proud of you, Scar. Area 77 is truly making a positive impact on you,” Doc declared. With that, he flew off towards Area 77.

Scar was left in his wake, dumbfounded. The notebook was gone. At least he hadn’t put anything incriminating in it. And it didn’t really matter that it was gone, except that Doc had around half an hour’s worth of notes on the hippies, and that was actually a decent amount.

Doc was  _ proud of him _ ? That was more of an insult to Scar. He felt ashamed that he had stupidly helped Doc again.

_ Maybe next time don’t do therapy if Doc can take what you make away from you, _ said a voice inside his head. That was actually quite a good idea, actually.

But Doc was proud of him, and that was not a good thing. If Doc liked him, then Scar really did help him.

Then Scar realized. Of course he’d helped Doc. The contents of the notebook could definitely be useful and Doc was sure to extract every little bit of information from it.

_ What have I done? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There you have it, chapter 12!
> 
> I am currently working on chapter 16 (the last chapter) and it will be uploaded probably on my Monday.
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> If anyone can get the reference I put in the title of this chapter then I will be very impressed.


	13. And so they invaded the hippies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Ren falls over and Doc throws a silent tantrum.

“That is a terrible terrible,” Stress said gravely.

The four of them were crammed in the small building next to the gas station which Scar suspected was meant to be the place you paid for your gas, but it was a bit small. Actually, it was very small.

“Dude, I’m not blaming you, but that actually was really stupid,” Ren told him.

“I know,” Scar moaned. He ran his hands through his hair. “I’m such an idiot.”

“True,” Ren remarked.

“Well, what’s done is done,” False exclaimed, clapping her hands. “Okay, so we need to come up with a plan to help-slash-stop Doc. Any ideas?”

“What?” Scar, Ren and Stress asked simultaneously.

“Hmm … this might be a problem to put in your terms, so I’ll come up with an easier-to-understand problem,” False mused. “So imagine that you’re me, and you’ve got an enemy, Impulse. Now, Impulse is an idiot who can’t think logically, which is slightly different from Doc. Also, Scar, you messed up a lot, and I didn’t, so that’s also slightly different. Wait, let me think about this.”

There was a long silence. Stress raised her hand to speak, but False continued before she could get her words out.

“Our situations are slightly different, but the idea is the same. You don’t know why your enemy is being your enemy, because they usually aren’t. You want to find out, before you can start kicking them in the shins for the rest of eternity.”

“Woah, woah, woah,” Scar said loudly. “We do not want to injure Doc. We want to help him.”

“I don’t think he can be helped. It’s not like he’s being  _ mind-controlled _ or anything - that sort of thing doesn’t exist. He’s just being a gigantic -” she cut herself off before she could say anything she would regret. “I wouldn’t be surprised if X exiles him when this whole thing ends.”

“We’ve got to give ‘im a chance,” Stress cut in.

“We gave him chances, and he threatened Scar with self-deletion and might lash out and attack the hippies!” False argued. “He’s had his chances.”

“Do you want ‘im to be exiled?” Stress asked.

“No, I don’t, but it might come to that!” False snapped.

“Might. Which means that we can still help ‘im. I don’t think that Doc would do this. ‘e could be getting blackmailed, or mind-controlled - that thing could ‘appen - and if we exile ‘im, ‘e’ll be stuck like that!” Stress shot back. “You said you don’t want ‘im to be exiled, so we need to  _ do something! _ ”

That was true. That was very true.

False seemed to relax. “You’re right. We’ve gotta save him.”

“Any ideas, anybody?” Ren asked.

“I think both the blackmail and the mind-control theory could work. Otherwise I think it would just be Doc being really mean,” False replied.

“But if he was getting blackmailed, then he wouldn’t actually delete himself,” Scar said. “Unless what he was being threatened with was that bad.”

“Yeah, plus Doc doesn’t have any relatives - he underwent that process of making creepers into cyborgs and he’s the only one that worked because he’s the only one with consciousness. He knows that what family he does have aren’t conscious and will explode,” False reasoned. “So they can’t be held hostage. Also we are his family and all of us are still well.”

“What could be mind-controlling him, if that’s the case?” Ren asked. “We’ve got lots of magic stuff but nothing comes to mind when talking about mind-control.”

“Yeah, like none of our sources of magic have anything to do with mind control,” False added. “The Ender dragon, the Wither, the illagers, enchantment - they’ve got nothing to do with mind control.”

“That’s a big problem,” Ren remarked.

“What else could be mind-controlling, then?” False asked sensibly. “Like, there’s nothing in any article about mind control. We’ve only ever read about it in stories.”

“What stories have you read? It could link to one of them,” Scar said. “Is there anything remotely like what’s happening to Doc?”

False gave him a weird look. “Look, I know that you’re worried about Doc and all, but they’re just stories. They don’t exist.”

“Stories are always based on a shred of truth,” Stress interjected.

“That’s what they say, but that’s not necessarily the case,” False snapped.

“Do you have a better idea?” Scar asked.

“No, but it’s useless to do this anyway - it’s not going to work,” False snapped.

“Well, we’re going to search through a few stories, while you stay here,” Ren said pointedly.

Scar could almost see the hesitation in False. It was a tough choice, choosing between keeping her dignity and having company. “I’ll join you, just to make sure you don’t get too crazy. Just remember, it’s mostly not real.”

“Mostly,” Ren snickered.

In a flash, False’s gloved hand rested on the hilt of her sword. “Did you say anything, Ren?”

Ren eyed the sword, still sheathed but somehow gleaming with danger. “Nope.”

Stress had meanwhile got out her communicator and was scrolling through. “Why’d you guys fight so much?”

“Because he’s annoying,” False said immediately.

“He wouldn’t be that annoying if you stopped paying attention to him,” Scar suggested.

“Nah, that’s what they say but Ren will just feel underappreciated and annoy me more,” False decided.

“Sure,” Stress replied absentmindedly and she squinted at her communicator. “X says that the library is open. Wanna go?”

Scar checked his own, and it beeped.

It was Doc, on the private chat again.

<Docm77> scar, come back NOW

<Docm77> we’re getting started with our plan right now

Ren, who was peering over Scar’s shoulder, asked, “What plan?”

“I have no idea. When he says “our plan” he means “my plan”,” Scar replied, shrugging. His shoulder came into contact with Ren’s chin and the part-time hippie stepped back, clutching his chin. He tripped over Stress who was behind him and was sprawled on the floor.

“I need to go back to Area 77,” Scar announced.

“Can someone help me please?” Ren asked from the floor.

“That’s fine,” False answered.

“Everything hurts,” Ren moaned.

Scar chuckled as Stress helped him back up. “Okay, see you! Area 77 awaits!”

~~~

Doc was sitting on one of the tentacle-like structures on top of the HIB headquarters. The cyborg seemed to be humming and fiddling with his robotic arm.

He snapped to attention immediately once Scar landed in front of him.

“You’re here, excellent. So, now we’ve got to do something about the hippie problem.”

“What … exactly?” Scar asked.

“We need to investigate further. Hopefully we can sabotage them while we’re at it,” Doc explained.

“How … exactly?” Scar asked.

“I’ve been using my drone to survey the area. I saw them all go inside Renbob’s RV and then they all disappeared,” Doc answered. “We need to know where they went and what they’re doing.”

That sounded reasonable, but a total violation of privacy. But privacy had already been violated a billion times over the course of the hippies’ existence.

He needed to keep an eye on Doc. That was very important. He was the only person who could do it since no-one else was as close to Doc as Scar was.

But that also sounded manipulative.  _ But Doc is manipulative. Plus, you’re trying to help him. _

Besides, he didn’t have much of a choice, did he? Although Doc probably wouldn’t delete himself if he just refused one time, this might have an impact in the future.

“I wrote in that notebook that I heard that there’s an underground cave under there,” Scar pointed out.

“That’s just a rumor. We need the cold, hard truth,” Doc said dismissively.

_ Okay, then _ , Scar thought.

Without a warning, Doc stood up and launched himself off of the tentacle. Scar found himself thinking about how badly he had named these tentacle-things before realizing that he probably should follow Doc.

Doc had launched into flight mode and was flying towards the hippie commune. Scar followed him until they both landed in the circle of RVs around the campfire.

Scar knew that Doc knew that the RV made of spruce wood belonged to Renbob, so he wasn’t surprised when Doc immediately rushed over to it and went inside. Scar followed him.

It was the first time Scar had entered on of the RVs. It was cramped and full of stuff, but in a way, it seemed cozy and inviting. It certainly seemed different from the clinical nature of Area 77.

“I knew it!” Scar heard Doc crow from the very back of the van.

Scar couldn’t see what it was from behind, as Doc took up much of the space. “What is it!”

Doc moved sideways so that Scar could see. Scar walked forwards and saw a bathroom.

“What?” Scar asked, confused.

Doc reached over and pressed a button. Scar heard a piston retract and briefly saw the toilet retract into the wall, revealing a hole that lead underground.

“Woah,” Scar exclaimed. “Should we go in?”

“Of course,” Doc replied. Scar moved aside as Doc stood on top of the toilet and pressed the button.

In a flash, Doc was gone.

“Doc?” Scar called. “Are you there?”

There was no reply.  _ Well, gotta give it a try. _

Scar took a deep breath, stepped onto the toilet and pushed the button. The floor underneath him gave way.

He yelped as he fell, but it wasn’t a long fall. Maybe only around ten or so blocks? He was drenched in water though. He suspected that there was a water stream that lead somewhere but he wasn’t going to tell Doc that.

He looked around. He was in some sort of industrial underground cave - the rumor had been true. There was a yellow landmover right in front of them that blocked off the rest of the cave, but he knew that the rest of the cave existed.

Doc was standing right in front of him. The cyborg seemed to be tense.

Scar surveyed the cave. It was mostly made out of coarse dirt and grass, and he could see another yellow landmover on the other side of the cave. There were two lampposts that he could see, made out of sea lanterns.

He was completely startled when Doc leaped from a grassy ledge onto the landmover, and ten leaped off of that. He followed.

The rest of the cave wasn’t much different from what he had seen already. The curious thing was that there was a tunnel leading to another room.

Scar peeked through the tunnel and what he saw didn’t really surprise him. He knew that Grian had built the landmovers due to the style they were built in, and the contents of the next room he had predicted was built by Rendog, and he was right.

He walked through the tunnel and emerged in a giant room full of giant mushrooms.

Ren had outdone himself again. Scar skirted past a giant mushroom made of actual red mushroom blocks, and took in the beauty and majesty that was Renbob’s building.

The room was filled to the brim with giant mushrooms made of all sorts of different materials - colored glass, terracotta - it was all there,

The room was complete chaos - it was overgrown with grass and mushrooms, and everywhere Scar looked spelled “hippies”, bright and clear.

Scar was struck by how different the hippies were. They were exactly polar opposite. The cave smelled like freedom and wildness, and Area 77 radiated an aura of imprisonment and control. He saw diamond ore blocks in the pools of water and thought about how the hippies didn’t care about money and thought that it was just a decoration. Which technically it was.

He wandered around the cave for a bit. There was a table in the middle with a chair in front of it, as well as a wall of red concrete with two signs that read “Friendship” and “Broship”.

He also found a pressure plate and a door that led to a bubble column exit. So that was how they got out. There were no other obvious exits from this cave.

At the back of the room was a wall with three toilet-shaped structures with buttons next to each of them. Scar could see a sticky piston and some lava underneath the toilet made out of spruce wood.

_ Huh. Maybe this is how Impulse died to lava that time? Then this should be the interview room. But how didn’t he see that lava? Maybe they removed that block? But why? _

He was puzzling over this when he heard a roar of frustration from Doc.

Scar ran over to where the sound had come from. Doc was still in the first cave, standing in front of a tunnel that Scar was sure hadn’t been there before.

He walked closer, and saw an armor stand scene with two armor stands representing Grian and Ren, playing chess.

There was a sign there too, and Scar could just make out the words “Nothing to see here. GOT YOU” as he ran to stand behind Doc.

“Dang,” Scar breathed out.

“I will bet you anything it was Cleo. She is the only armor stand worker who would do this,” Doc fumed. “Well, we’ve found another enemy so that was a success.”

“Are we … leaving?” Scar asked hopefully.

“Yes,” Doc answered abruptly. “Where is the exit?”

Scar seriously considered not telling him and just slipping away while the cyborg wasn’t looking, but that might end very badly once Doc found out. “I found a bubble column over in the other room.”

He led the way to the mushroom room, which he now named in his head the Shroom Room. He carefully avoided showing Doc the pools of water with diamond ore in them, in case Doc decided to steal them.

He turned back to Doc once he got to the pressure plate. The cyborg was muttering angrily and stomping on the grass, flowers and mushrooms. Scar caught “stupid hippies”, “so messy and annoying”, “who likes flowers anyway” and “everything is so everywhere” in his mutterings.

“The bubble column is behind the door,” Scar began to say, before Doc roughly pushed him aside and went through.

Scar picked himself up, dusting off his uniform and followed. He emerged soaking wet and at the base of another giant mushroom. He climbed out of the hole and found that he was in the vegetable garden in the hippie commune.

He stood up, still dripping with water. Doc was trampling on the crops in the vegetable garden and still seemed to be in a bad mood.

Scar smiled to himself. Doc was throwing a tantrum like a toddler.

The cyborg’s head snapped around and he immediately wiped the grin off his face.

“Something funny?” he asked.

“Not at all,” Scar answered.

Doc then launched himself into the air. Scar followed him.

As they flew back to Area 77, Scar turned back to the countdown clock and saw that it now proudly displayed the number 1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've finished writing everything, so I decided to get a move on and update a chapter today! Yay!
> 
> Headcanon: Because they aren't on a server (or maybe they aren't aware that they are on a server), and nothing exists outside of Hermitcraft, they can't exactly ban Doc. Banning in this universe turns into exiling, which is when they get rid of all one's gear and teleport them a few million blocks away without a communicator. I haven't exactly thought about what happens if an exiled person finds their way back, because no-one has been banned on the Hermitcraft server in modern history.
> 
> Also headcanon: This isn't mentioned in the chapter, but a hermit 'joins' the Hermitcraft 'server' when they are found by the main group of hermits. The hermits are randomly teleported to another 'universe', you could say, which is equivalent to a new season server in real life. So this work is set in the sixth world, because it is set in Hermitcraft season six. When somebody leaves the server, they either just vanish or set out on their own with a few companions (which is what I'm thinking of doing to Wels and Python if I ever do a season seven fic). Hermits who leave Hermitcraft for a while and then rejoin simply disappear for a while and pop back up.


	14. And so ... things ... happen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which problems are solved ... probably. Perhaps not, because I seem to like cliffhangers.

“Why are you always so hopeless?” Ren snapped.

“Look, I’m sorry! How was I meant to know that Doc was going to spy on you guys?” Scar asked.

“Calm down, Ren,” False ordered. “Scar wouldn’t have known. Doc would never tell anybody what he’s planning.”

“Fine. But I’ve already seen what the damage is,” Ren shot back. “All of the crops in the vegetable garden are trampled and the pumpkins and melons are gone!”

“Uh yeah … that was Doc,” Scar said.

“I spent so long hoeing all of that farmland,” Ren wailed.

“Sorry?”

The three of them were sitting on the floor of the room that held False’s super smelter underneath her house in Falsewell.

“Calm down, dude,” False scoffed. “That’s not the problem. Cleo’s safety is the problem.”

“I’ll tell her,” Scar volunteered.

“Really? She might also view you as her enemy,” Ren said.

“With my communicator,” Scar added.

“Sure …” Ren sounded quite doubtful and Scar couldn’t blame him. Getting on Cleo’s bad side was not exactly a good thing.

He took out his communicator and contacted Cleo with the private chat.

<GoodTimeWithScar> uh cleo?

<ZombieCleo> what

<ZombieCleo> don’t blame me for the armor stands

<GoodTimeWithScar> it’s not about that

<GoodTimeWithScar> well, it sort of is

<ZombieCleo> i’m not available for armor stand jobs at the moment

<GoodTimeWithScar> it’s not about that either

<ZombieCleo> what is it then

<GoodTimeWithScar> doc found the armor stand scene

<GoodTimeWithScar> you might want to be a bit concerned for your safety

He waited for a bit, because Cleo did not reply for a long time.

<GoodTimeWithScar> are you still there

<ZombieCleo> sorry, i was too busy laughing

<ZombieCleo> you think doc can get me?

<ZombieCleo> please

<ZombieCleo> he can keep on dreaming

<ZombieCleo> plus he doesn’t even come to the main island anymore so it’s not much of a problem, is it?

<GoodTimeWithScar> you know how far doc can go with vengeance

<ZombieCleo> last time he tried to take revenge on me someone else fell for the trap

<GoodTimeWithScar> fair enough

He put away his communicator and saw Ren and False looking at him expectantly. “Done.”

“Good,” False clapped her hands. “Now -”

“Actually, False, I was wanting to do some work over at my base at the main island,” Scar interrupted.

False blinked. “Okay, sure! See you!”

Scar got up and went up the stairs. As he was climbing, he heard Ren cry, “No Scar, why did you leave me?”

He snorted and was soon in the sky, flying towards Hermitville and the nether portal.

~~~

After a long but uneventful nether trip, he emerged from the nether portal in his base. He started walking down the boardwalk, before realizing that it would be quicker to just fly around the island.

He jumped off the bridge and flew, landing on the boardwalk outside of the house furthest away from the town.

He wanted to do a bit of maintenance on his base, because as he looked at the arch connecting the volcanic island to the island with the town on it, it looked odd. Perhaps it was just the positioning, or the palette of blocks he had used, but it looked strange and he didn’t like it.

He started by taking down the entire arch. The positioning wasn’t correct, and no amount of terraforming could change that.

The arch was mostly made of stone and dirt, so he easily took down that. There were a bunch of leaves on it as well, but he didn’t have any shears, so he used his silk touch pickaxe instead.

He then laid down a few chests on the beach to store the materials. He internally knew that this definitely would result in another chest monster, but he really wasn’t bothered.

He got out some stone and started to build another arch. This time, the shape was already much better than it was before.

After he’d finished with the basic structure, he added the rest of the materials he’d salvaged - dirt, cobblestone slabs, andesite, leaves - to the arch. That looked rather nice.

He put some palm trees down, made with composters and oak leaves. Then the arch was pretty much finished.

He went down to the beach and sat on the sand. It felt so good to be back on his island, to be Scar again.

But wait - he remembered something. He rushed to the nearest pier, on which was a group of barrels. He reached to open one and found his old clothes - the Scar clothes, the non-Captain Angry Eyes clothes.

He hugged them tightly to his chest. He didn’t know why he was so attached to clothes, but he was so glad to be back.

He changed back into his normal clothes in the nearest house. He came outside again, feeling all warm inside.

He went back to the beach and began thinking about nothing in particular before he was rudely interrupted by someone swooping in with an elytra.

He looked up and saw Doc coming in for a landing. He didn’t know what to do. Should he run? Why was Doc here? Was he here for Cleo? Cleo was right next door! Oh no!

Doc landed beside him, and he decided to stand up.

“Hey, Doc!” he said brightly.

“Hi,” Doc replied. “What are you doing here?”

 _I should be asking that!_ Scar thought. “Just a bit of terraforming again. Why?”

“Just curious,” Doc shrugged.

“Okay,” Scar answered. “Now why are _you_ here?”

“To keep an eye on you,” Doc replied immediately.

“What why?”

“I’m just kidding!” Doc laughed.

Scar wanted to believe that, but it was exactly what Doc would say if he was actually spying on Scar.

“You seem to be in a much better mood now,” he observed.

“I guess I am,” Doc agreed. “Now I’ve decided that we don’t need to spy on the hippies to wipe the filth out forever.”

“What?” Scar whipped his head around to look at Doc. The cyborg’s eyes were glowing with a manic energy, almost as if they were turning … red?

“Surely you’ve figured it out by now - the hippies cannot stay alive like this. They cannot be allowed to live while they defy us,” Doc spat.

Scar began to edge away. “Uh-huh.”

“So that is why I’m thinking - I’ve found a way to permanently delete other people as well,” Doc declared.

Scar bolted. He reached for his rockets and began jumping to launch into flight. But his movements were shaky and panicked, and he couldn’t seem to be able to fly.

Doc easily grabbed Scar’s ankle as he jumped again, and Scar couldn’t move his foot away. He grabbed his shovel, which was the closest weapon he had, and smacked Doc’s hand with it. He didn’t let go.

“Get OFF me!” Scar yelled.

Doc didn’t answer.

Scar looked back at him, and it seemed that Doc was … still, but still had a vice-like grip on Scar’s ankle.

“Doc?”

The cyborg’s eyes flashed a bright, dangerous red. “Just where do you think you’re going, Captain Angry Eyes?”

“Away from you, and my name isn’t Captain Angry Eyes, it’s Scar!”

“You can pretend to be Scar all you want, but you know that deep inside, you’re the cold-hearted killer that Captain Angry Eyes was and is and will continue to be,” Doc hissed.

Scar furiously shook his head. “I am NOT Captain Angry Eyes, I am Scar, and I REFUSE to do anything with you ever again!”

He undid the straps on his boot and shook it off, leaving nothing but an empty book in Doc’s hand.

He took one last look at Doc’s red-eyed form, then -

Doc was in agony. His insides felt like they were fighting each other and he couldn’t think straight, couldn’t seem to focus properly.

Scar looked at Doc. Doc seemed to be in great pain and had dropped the boot. Now he was clutching his head. “I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m going to tell X what’ you’re doing.”

“No wait stop -” Doc gasped. Scar watched as he fell to the floor.

He didn’t know what to do. Should he make sure Doc was okay? But Doc didn’t deserve that. And if Doc woke up, Scar would probably be in a lot of trouble.

So Scar put on his boot again and prepared to take flight again, before he heard a sound behind him. A calm, decidedly non-violent sound.

He turned around. There stood Doc, looking down at his hands like he had never seen them before.

Doc was in shock. He was him again. He was HIM! He was Doc again! “I’m … normal.”

Scar watched him closely. He seemed to be … normal Doc?

“What happened, Doc?”

Doc looked up from his hands at Scar’s worried face.

“I … don’t know,” he whispered. “I think … I was mind controlled?”

Scar let out a shaky breath. So it had been mind control. “Are you okay?”

“How do you know that I’m not faking it?” Doc asked him.

“I don’t,” Scar replied. “I’m choosing to believe that you’re back now.”

He walked up to Doc and laid a hand on his shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“Definitely not,” Doc answered. “I feel very weird.”

“What do you mean?” Scar asked gently. “Can you describe it?”

“I feel like … I am me, but I’m not me at the same time,” Doc replied slowly. “I feel like I’m separate from my body.”

“What about when you were mind-controlled? Can you describe that?”

“I kind of felt like … well, someone else was taking the reins of my body for me. But somehow I didn’t feel like anything was wrong - I didn’t fight it, or anything,” Doc answered. His voice cracked. “And I followed the person who was controlling me. I spied on the hippies. I captured innocent mobs. I threatened you.”

Scar wanted to say that it was okay, that it wasn’t his fault, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Because it was his fault, technically.

 _But it’s not!_ he told himself. _It’s not his fault_.

_What if it’s a trap? What if he’s actually being mind-controlled and the mind-controller is faking it? What if he’s actually evil and he’s faking it?_

Doc sensed the doubt in Scar’s eyes. “Scar, please believe me.”

“I do, but …” Scar trailed off. “I’m in a precarious emotional state right now.”

“I’m sorry, Scar,” Doc whispered.

“I guess it’s not really your fault,” Scar stated. “Do you have any idea how you became mind-controlled?”

“Not at all,” Doc answered. “I remember being in the nether portal tower and eating those carrots and then I FORGOT something really important.”

Scar watched, helpless, as Doc sank to the floor. It felt strange to see Doc, one of the strongest and least emotional hermits, cry. And he didn’t know what to do about it.

“Just let it out,” he advised. “We don’t blame you.”

He watched Doc carefully. He’d never seen the cyborg cry before, so this might be an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Doc didn’t really seem to be crying … anything. Scar knew that Doc’s robotic parts were waterproof, so he’d still expected some sort of liquid tears to come out of Doc’s eyes. Instead, it seemed like Doc was just making crying sounds without any actual tears.

After a few minutes of crying, Doc stopped. “So embarrassing,” he muttered. “Crying.”

“It’s not embarrassing to cry,” Scar chided. “Everybody needs to cry.”

“Not me,” Doc grumbled. Scar hid a grin.

He looked around. The sun was beginning to set. “It’s getting late. We should get back to Area 77. You need to get some sleep and we can tell everyone else tomorrow.”

“Sure.”

They both flew back to the cursed nether portal island. Doc paused before they could go through. “Your base looks really nice.”

Scar was flattered. “Why, thank you.”

They flew back to Area 77 in silence.

Once they arrived in the iron farm hangar, Scar set up a bed and some chests for Doc to put his stuff in.

“You can put your stuff in there,” he directed. “I’m heading over to Captain Angry Eye’s house now.”

He waved bye to Doc who was trying to tame all of the documents on his desk.

Doc watched Scar as he disappeared around the corner.

He put all of his items inside the chest. It was dark outside, so he needed to get some sleep. The person who had been mind-controlling him did not care about him getting enough sleep, he remembered.

He curled up on the bed and promptly fell asleep.

~~~

When Doc awoke the next morning, he felt a lot better.

He sat up. He wasn’t wide awake, but he was still more energetic than he had been for a long time.

Today, he and Scar were going to tell X about the mind-control. He could only hope that they didn’t blame him.

Now that he thought about it, he was mind-numbingly hungry. He checked the chest full of his items and found a golden carrot. He’d been eating them for the past few weeks and he knew that this one was the last of the stack he had consumed.

He bit down, and he realized that he had made a terrible mistake as he lost control of his body again.

If there was anyone watching Docm77 as his face contorted into a horrible grin, they would have seen his eyes glowing bright red. But no-one was around, again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hahahahaha


	15. And so Scar skipped happily into the hangar, with no idea what had happened.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which battles are fought and perhaps lost.

Scar pulled at his sleeve once again. It felt so,  _ so _ good to be back as Scar. He really needed to discuss with Doc what was going to happen with Area 77 because he certainly wasn’t going to keep being Captain Angry Eyes.

He went outside and walked around the back of the house to leap off the ledge and fly. He immediately saw a giant chest monster that he had to clean up later and a few Jelliecats scattered around.

He landed in front of the hangar and popped his head inside.

He saw Doc sitting in front of the desk, stacking the documents together to tidy it up.

“Hey, Doc!” he called. “How are you feeling?”

He saw Doc whip his head around and glare. “Shut up.”

_ Damn. Damn. Damn. _

He forced a wide smile onto his face. Perhaps the person controlling Doc didn’t know what was happening?

He immediately sensed a serious issue with this assumption but he didn’t have the chance to think about it because Doc was drawing his sword and walking towards him.

His hand shot to rest on his sheathed sword. He attempted to breathe normally. “Is there anything wrong, Doc?”

“So you know all of my secrets now, do you?” Doc hissed. Was it really correct to call the monster before him Doc? It looked like Doc, but it wasn’t really, was it?

Scar figured that the person behind the Doc mask didn’t know what had occured after Doc returned to normal yesterday. Doc hadn’t told him anything he had found out, if he had found anything out. So he lied, because if he said that he didn’t then ‘Doc’ would definitely not tell him anything.

“Perhaps,” Scar said, making sure to sound as smug as possible.

Doc was now standing directly in front of him, a few blocks away.

“But perhaps you don’t know that I can delete others too … permanently,” ‘Doc’ began. “I have figured out a way to do it to you as well.”

“I already told you that I don’t care what you do to me,” Scar said impatiently.

“You are so dense,” ‘Doc’ snapped. “What about the other people on the server? What if, say, False, or  _ Xisuma _ , were to … disappear?”

Scar froze. He kept a calm expression, even though he was screaming internally.

_ Oh. My. God. He can make  _ others _ disappear now. What am I supposed to do? _

“Of course, now that you know what I am capable of, that means you have to be deleted as well,” ‘Doc’ sighed. “Such a shame. Captain Angry Eyes was  _ so _ useful.”

_ Stall for time He probably can’t do it immediately. It might have to do something with his communicator. If I can stall him, someone will find us _ , he thought. He hoped.

He drew his sword too. Doc couldn’t exactly delete anyone if he was fighting Scar, could he?

“That little toothpick can’t do anything against me,” Doc scoffed. “One day, your little world and your little friends will be mine and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

“Yours?” Scar asked.

“Don’t think you can just weasel information out of me like that,” Doc snapped. “How stupid do you think I am?”

_ He’s aware what I’m doing. Time to switch to plan B. _

_ But I don’t have a plan B! _

“Not very,” Scar replied casually.

‘Doc’ snorted and examined his sword closely. Scar tightened his grip on his own.

“But Captain Angry Eyes was always a terrible liar,” ‘Doc’ sighed. “And it seems you are, too.”

Scar stiffened.

Without warning, ‘Doc’ leapt at Scar, bringing its sword down to strike him. Scar dodged out of the way, more because of his jitteriness than anything else.

He finally drew his own sword. If he could keep ‘Doc’ occupied then someone would eventually find them.

“Oh Scar, you silly little fool,” Doc’ taunted. “You can’t possibly hope to outmatch me in a duel.”

Scar kept his head on. He wanted to scream that he wasn’t, but that wouldn’t exactly be beneficial for his plan. Therefore he kept his mouth shut and resorted to glaring at ‘Doc’.

“You know you won’t be able to overcome me,” the cyborg said. “Do you yield?”

“I don’t want to fight you, Doc,” Scar replied, ignoring the question. “What did you have for breakfast?”

“What? Golden car-” ‘Doc’ began, before it realized what Scar was trying to do. “Come here, you little -”

Scar dodged ‘Doc’s’ hands as it fumbled for him. He now had a piece of evidence that pointed to the fact that golden carrots had something to do with this.

He ran to the wall opposite the wall Doc had set up in. ‘Doc’ followed him and he proceeded to run around the border of the iron farm.

After a few laps, he was getting tired and he knew he had to change tactics. Doc was partly robot, which meant that his stamina was better than Scar’s by far.

Scar made a dash for the exit. He was thinking about leading Doc around the whole map on a wild goose chase, but he felt hands close around his boot. He tripped over and his face made contact with the ground.

“Seriously, again?” he yelled. “You did this to me yesterday!”

“Yet you still didn’t learn,” 'Doc' sighed. “No wonder Angry Eyes had to go. He was such a slow learner.”

His boot was released but before he could get up, ‘Doc’ had planted a foot on his back. A strange thing about Doc was that he didn’t ever wear shoes. A bare foot on Scar’s back felt really weird.

He attempted to crawl away, but ‘Doc’ stabbed his sword into the ground right in front of Scar’s face.

“I’ll give you one last chance,” ‘Doc’ hissed. “If you stop fighting, perhaps we can come to some sort of deal.”

_ Trick him into thinking that you’re considering it, _ said something in Scar’s head.

“Perhaps we can,” Scar gasped.

‘Doc removed his sword from the ground and Scar climbed up until he was standing.

He faced the cyborg.

“Excellent. Now, why don’t you join me over here?” ‘Doc’ asked. He began walking towards his desk again.

Scar bolted towards the exit again. He heard an audible sigh behind him and soon felt a sharp pain on his arm. He gasped and looked at his right arm, which was bleeding from three wounds.

He turned around to see ‘Doc’ holding a trident with blood on the ends.

“Really? And I actually believed you for a second,” it sighed.

Scar attempted to eat some of his chicken to regenerate his hunger, but ‘Doc’ leapt at him with its sword and he had to run away.

“Doc, please,” he begged.

‘Doc’ scoffed. “I am no Doc. Your protests won’t do anything.”

“That’s true,” Scar agreed. “The real Doc would never be so mean or evil.”

He was hoping to prod a reaction out of ‘Doc’ but was sorely disappointed. The mind-controller simply laughed. “I never claimed to be anything but.”

It brought down its sword upon Scar and he had to use his left hand to use his sword to block. His wrist wasn’t strong enough and it faltered, breaking the clash that the two swords had been locked in.

He ran to the other wall. He realized after he had done so that it would’ve been a much better idea to just run outside, but that wasn’t a big deal now. He finally ate his chicken and watched as his hunger regenerated and his wounds slowly closed up.

He readied his sword again. This time, ‘Doc’ knew that he was prepared. He prepared himself as ‘Doc’ rushed at him.

The two swords clanged together. Scar kept his grip steady and didn’t let go. He didn’t expect for ‘Doc’ to suddenly break out of the clash, causing him to lose balance.

He tripped forward and before he could do anything, ‘Doc’ had left a shallow cut down his back. His vision was temporarily blurred and he gasped at the pain.

His regeneration worked slower this time, and ‘Doc’ had the time to leave a few more cuts and bruises before Scar was able to escape again.

“Why don’t you just kill me?” he asked, trying to catch his breath.

‘Doc’ smiled creepily. “That’s not fun at all.”

It went at him again and Scar had to draw up his sword just in time.

_ Remember Scar, your job is not to kill him, it’s to stall for time. Someone’s going to find you. _

And he had all the time in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just reading through this chapter made me realize how weird all of the 'Doc's sound.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which most problems are resolved, except not actually.
> 
> Enjoy!

“Remember, you’ve gotta loosen the ground with the shovel first and then plant the flower,” Ren instructed.

“Yeah, I got that,” Grian muttered under his breath. He took out his shovel again and wiped the sweat off his forehead.

The three hippies were planting flowers in Area 77 following the flower power launch of the slime block RV. Ren was instructing Grian and Impulse on how to plant flowers effectively, having done it for far longer than both of them.

They were currently planting flowers on the stretch of lawn between the “HIB” headquarters and the wall of hangars next to the runway.

Impulse finished off one last lilac at the entrance to Hangar 13. “Okay, let’s continue!”

“No! There’s still plenty of space to plant more flowers!” Ren protested.

“Sounds like a great idea!” Grian said loudly. “I think the dirt patches between the runways might need a bit of work.”

“What? No!” Ren shouted desperately.

Grian smiled at Impulse. “Okay, Impulse. Let’s go over there, shall we?”

They both ignored Ren’s protests and began running over to the airstrip.

As Grian placed some more shulker boxes of flowers and bone meal, he saw Ren running to catch up to them. He knew he would, because Ren didn’t want to miss out on anything.

They began turning over the ground and planting flowers there. Impulse and Ren were assigned to the two long strips of grass and dirt between the three main runways and Grian was assigned to the small patches of dirt and grass between the entrances of each hangar.

Grian grabbed a few stacks of each type of flower he had in the shulker boxes and began planting them in the land he was assigned. He didn’t care about what Ren had said about the shovels and simply planted flowers the normal way.

Impulse waved to Ren. “Oh hi, Ren! Didn’t see you there. One might actually assume that you were afraid of being left out so you joined us!”

“Yeah, fine, whatever,” Ren muttered.

Grian was working his way systematically around his patch of grass when he heard a shout.

He froze, hands immediately going to his rockets. The shout had sounded like Scar, and it had sounded like a fearful one too … what was happening?

He whipped his head up to look in the direction of where the sound had come from. He was looking at the entrance to the closest hangar.

He cautiously peered around the corner and was almost hit in the face with a trident. He jerked back, Doc’s trident sinking into the wall and returning to its master.

“Guys, come over here!” he yelled, turning to Ren and Impulse who were still busy planting flowers together. Impulse heeded the instructions immediately and Ren cast a despairing look at the flowerless plains before following him.

Impulse ran up to Grian, who was standing in front of the entrance to one of the hangars in the side of the hill. He didn’t know why Grian looked so panicked.

Then he realized why as he observed a certain cowboy being chased by a creeper cyborg. Scar was in hangar.

He took out his sword and rushed in. Doc was busy chasing Scar, so he easily managed to kick him in the back of the knees.

Doc stopped for a second, then turned around.

“Hippie,” he growled.

“Area 77,” Impulse answered shortly.

He brought his blade up to meet Doc’s and they began fighting.

Scar staggered over to the entrance. He was bleeding from many cuts all over his body and everything hurt, so, so much.

He saw Grian and Ren come into the hangar. Were they angry at him? Were they going to be angry at him?

He could only think of those two things as he collapsed onto the floor.

Ren rushed up to Scar. The man was so injured and obviously weak.

“Call someone!” Ren told Grian. He turned away to Scar and fished out some clean bandages from his pocket.

He gently wrapped some of Scar’s wounds with bandages. There wasn’t much he could do other than that, since he didn’t have any potions he could use.

Grian got out his communicator.

<Grian> anyone who is available, area 77 NOW

<Grian> emergency

He put his communicator away to see Impulse and Doc fighting. He too, got out his sword and started to attack Doc.

Impulse sensed that Grian was going to try and attack Doc as well when the small hippie drew his sword. “You’re not going to help, Grian.”

“O-ok,” Grian nodded. “What do I do then?”

Impulse would sigh if it wasn’t so risky. He parried a blow from Doc. “I don’t know, go help Ren?”

“I got this!” Ren called. “He’s very weak though.”

Grian turned from watching Doc and Impulse fight to Ren, who was helping Scar sit up against the wall. He walked over and crouched. “Do you need anything?”

“Maybe some potions?” Ren asked. “That would be great!”

Grian thought about it. Perhaps there were some in Hippieland? “Wait a sec!”

Ren watched as Grian bolted through the entrance. Where he was going was of no concern to him, as long as he came back with useful potions.

Scar opened his eyes. He was weak, but at least his wounds didn’t hurt as much as they used to. They still hurt, though.

Impulse parried blow after blow from Doc. He was getting tired, but he hoped that Doc couldn’t tell.

It was quite relieving, honestly, when X arrived.

Ren immediately noticed. “X!”

“Geez, what happened here?” X asked. Behind him, Iskall was attempting to get a better look at what was happening. False was keeping a steady hand on her sword and Stress was looking very worried.

False and Iskall simultaneously rushed over to where Impulse and Doc were fighting. As Iskall engaged in battle. False kicked Doc in the shins, causing him to fall over.

Iskall proceeded to sit on Doc.

Grian rushed through the entrance again, brandishing a few bottles of potions. He ran over to Ren and Scar and handed over the bottles.

Ren checked the labels very carefully. They did seem to be healing and regeneration potions, which was strange considering Grian’s love of renaming important objects.

He splashed a few onto Scar, who was still too weak to talk or sit on on his own.

Stress gasped as she saw Scar. She bustled over and began inspecting the very injured and very weak man. “Iskall, can you get me some -”

“Can’t, I’m sitting on Doc,” Iskall hollered.

Stress rolled her eyes and sighed.

“What do you need?” Ren asked.

“I was goin’ to ask for potions, but you’ve already applied ‘em,” Stress answered. “Good job, by the way.”

While they were talking, False and X were inspecting Doc.

“Why do you think he did that?” False asked.

“I honestly have no idea,” X shrugged.

False wanted to say something about the mind control theory, but X was already talking.

“I don’t think we should let him stay with us. We can drop him off somewhere far away and he can fend for himself,” he said. “It’s not safe to let him stay here.”

“Yeah, I can’t sit on him forever,” Iskall added.

“I-” False began, but was interrupted by her own thoughts.

_ What if he’s actually bad? Ren, Scar and Stress say that he’s not, but they don’t actually have any proof, right? Plus, he’s hurt us and we don’t know if he’s actually mind-controlled or not. _

She nodded. “But X, are you sure?”

“Very sure,” X answered.

Iskall was rifling through Doc’s pockets to confiscate any equipment. He took out all his tools, his stowed armor, and his communicator.

“What are you going to do?” Grian asked.

“Probably drop him off a few million blocks from here. He can fend for himself. I don’t want to delete him permanently,” X replied.

He began typing on his admin communicator to teleport Doc three million blocks away. He didn’t want to do it, but he had no choice.

As he typed, he remembered how he, along with the other hermits, had met Doc, back in their third world. The cyborg had seemed prickly and was constantly suspicious. At least now they knew why.

“Wait,” Stress cut in. “Wait. Before you do it, X, why don’t we ask ‘im a few questions?”

“Seems sensible,” False agreed.

X sighed. “Fine, you do it, False.”

“Wha’ about me?” Stress asked indignantly.

“Who  _ are _ you and why are you doing this?” False demanded.

The cyborg on which Iskall was sitting on laughed. “Why, I’m Doc. I thought you knew that, Falsey.”

“Don’t call me Falsey!” False snapped. “WHY did you try to kill Scar?”

“Why do I need a reason?” Doc asked.

“Because unprovoked attacks result in unprovoked punishments,” she answered.

Doc began laughing. It was a harsh and terrible sound, and False had to cover her ears for a bit. “They were not unprovoked attacks, darling False. You’ll find out soon enough.”

“That’s it. I’ve heard enough,” X cut in. “Let’s exile -”

Someone coughing interrupted them. Everyone turned to look at Scar, who had regained some of his energy. The wound on his face had healed without a scar.

“Don’t move, Scar,” Impulse instructed. “You’re still weak.”

“Don’t exile him,” Scar interrupted.

“Excuse me?” X asked.

“He told me, yesterday, that he was mind controlled. And this morning he ate the golden carrots again and fell back under control,” Scar added.

X waved his arms. “You can’t possibly believe that.”

“Please, X, I know it,” Scar begged. “Come on, you’ve got to believe me.”

“Is this true?” X demanded, turning to Doc, who was uncomfortably sandwiched between Iskall and the floor.

‘Doc’ made direct eye contact with Scar and chuckled. “Oh, it’s true. But knowing it won’t stop anything. You might as well spend your last days in ignorance.”

It let out a bone-chilling laugh and its eyes flashed red. Then it was gone.

Doc’s head was spinning. He was so dizzy, and Iskall was sitting on top of him.

“Can you get off me?” he snapped.

“Oh, sure!” Iskall replied, and hastily climbed off.

Doc stood up and stretched. “Did it happen again? Was it because of the golden carrots?”

“Probably,” Scar answered.

“Damn.” Doc scowled.

“Erm, I think that you guys should get some rest,” False suggested. “You’ve been through a lot. We can get you settled in Falsewell.”

“I bet it’s because you finally want to have proper visitors to your town,” Impulse muttered.

False smacked him on the head with her shovel.

“Ow, what’d you do that for?” he complained.

“Watch what comes out of your mouth,” she snapped. “Soon, you’ll be in Falsewell and I hold all power there.”

Impulse rolled his eyes and decided, for one last time, that he would shut his mouth. But next time, he promised himself, he would speak up against False.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There ends this work! Thank you so, so much to everyone who read it and especially to the ones who left kudos or nice comments! I cannot stress enough how much it means to me. I’ve just started out writing fanfiction (this is the first work I’ve ever posted on any website, in case you didn’t know) and all of the nice people have filled me with determination - I mean, gratitude.
> 
> I’ve got a plan to continue this series, so I’ll be working on that. If you’ve got any requests for themes I could write something about, you can leave a comment, even though you might want to find a more experienced author who is also doing commissions. But it could end up turning into something great so just, you know, consider it?
> 
> I still need to clean up the plan for the second work, and I haven’t even started writing the actual thing. Also, school is getting a lot more busy so it might be a while. I’ll still be working on it in the background, though.
> 
> Special thanks to WhiteOrchidea who was the first user to leave kudos and left a nice comment on chapter 1 (it gave me hope for humanity).
> 
> Remember to wash your hands, drink lots of water and stay safe! <3

**Author's Note:**

> So there's the first chapter! I don't know if anyone's going to read this, but if you do, please leave feedback! This is my first ever work that I've posted publicly, so constructive criticism would be great. Actually even if I'd ever posted anything before, constructive criticism would still be great.
> 
> This work is based in an AU where Doc was containing alien life because of being mind-controlled - very cliche, I know. A backstory may be produced (or a sequel where the backstory is explained) so that's why it says it's in a series. The series does not exist yet.
> 
> I've written out a few more chapters but I prefer to keep ahead of schedule. I'll try to write a new chapter every day but I'm restarting school soon so ... yeah.
> 
> If I come up with a better name for this work, I'll change it.
> 
> Also apparently the Rendog and Stressmonster character tags don't exist?


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